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/ AYSIDE HESTINGS. 



BY 



JOHN A. JENNINGS, 

AUTHOR OF "THE MODERIj. ELOCUTIONIST " 



OPINIONS OF T" 

"A small and attractive volume of pleasant verse, 
and graceful expression." — The Rock. 

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PHILITIS: 



A CONDENSED ACCOUNT OF THE RECENTLY DISCOVERED 
SOLUTION OF THE USE AND MEANING 

OF 

THE GREAT PYRAMID, 

WHEREBY THE MYSTERY WHICH HAS SHROUDED THIS WONDERFUL 
STRUCTURE FOR FOUR THOUSAND YEARS HAS BEEN DISSIPATED, 
AND ITS CLAIM TO BE ACCEPTED AS A REVELATION OF 
THE HIGHEST ETHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS 
EXHAUSTIVELY DEMONSTRATED. 

TO WHICH IS ADDED A REVIEW OF 

PROFESSOR PIAZZI SMYTH'S 

SECOND EDITION OF 

"OUR INHERITANCE IN THE GREAT PYRAMID." 

BY / 

CHARLES CASEY, 

AUTHOR OF " NEMESIS," " DARWINISM," ETC., ETC. 



DUBLIN: 

CARSON BROTHERS, 7, GRAFTON-STREET. 
LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO. 
HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO, 

- — & - *w » 

1 88 0. Ih- **u\<\t\ )) 



TO 

MRS. C. PIAZZI SMYTH, 

EDINBURGH. 

gtabam, 

| am boitourri) bg fyt permission to 
trebicate "PHI LITIS" la goa, as a slujfrt trjmsstoit 
of esteem for lb* noble qualities of Ircatr aitb frcarf 
irg tu^rtfr pit arc bisiinguisbtb. 

CHAELES CASEY. 

October, 1872. 



i 



PREFACE. 



The rapid exhaustion of the First, Second, Third, 
and Fourth Editions of Philitis, and the continuing 
demand, have induced me to issue the present, to 
which has been added an account of most of the 
additional discoveries of symbolized truth made up 
to the time of writing. The rapidly increasing 
interest in the subject of the Great Pyramid is 
proved by the favour which has been extended to 
even the outline reference in Philitis. 

c. c. 



December, 1870. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Before submitting to the reader the wonderful revelations 
which have been brought to light within the last eighteen 
years, it may be well to give a descriptive sketch of the 
Great Pyramid, as it was planned by its architect, and as it 
appeared when it came from his hand a finished and perfect 
work. 

THE SITE. 

To the west of the Nile, at the apex of the Delta, and on 
the northernmost edge of the Jeezeh Hill, bounding the 
Lybian desert, the architect of this great symbolic monument 
chose the site for his stupendous work, and began by having 
some hundred acres square of the hill crest reduced to a dead 
level, thus giving that solid rock-bed foundation which alone 
could bear the mountain of masonry which he purposed 
raising on it. This being done, he laid off by line and square 
the duly oriented sides of the base, cutting the angle sockets 
sharp down into the living rock ; next he tested the purity of 
his square outline, measuring with fractional exactitude the 
diagonals of the base, and then projected the vertical height 
of the monument with an equal precision. Having thus fixed 
the outlines of the mighty symbol, he proceeded to give the 
inspiration of his mind a material form — a work so great as 
to require five million tons of huge squared stone to complete 
his idea — that idea embodying a form distinctly differing 
from any building that had gone before, as well as being in 



8 



size and durability the largest, highest, and most enduring 
stone monument that has ever been raised by the hands of 
man — an unique symbolic " pillar of witness," a pure and 
perfect pyramid. 

The standard of measure used by Philitis, in all the expres- 
sional or symbolic features of the work, was a cubit — a 
measure identical in length with that which was long after- 
Avard divinely dictated to Solomon for construction of the 
Temple of Jehovah on Mount Moriah, and now known as 
the "Sacred" or "Hebrew" cubit, to distinguish it from 
the cubits of greater and lesser lengths used by the profane 
nations of antiquity. 

Let us now suppose that one who had seen the architect 
lading down his plan and beginning his work had gone away 
from Egypt and returned after a lapse of thirty years, 
the first ten of which period had been spent by the builders 
in making a great cause wav from the Kile bank to the 
Pyramid hill, over which were drawn or moved to their final 
position the huge masses of squared stone that had been 
rafted down the river from their distant southern quarries, 
and the succeeding twenty years employing one hundred 
thousand workmen in completing the construction of the 
monument. Such an observer, as he approached the scene 
of his former visit, would then have seen a vast shadowless 
monument crowning the J eezeh Hill, ablaze with a dazzling 
glory, as its buff and polished sides reflected the sparkling 
rays of an Egyptian sun — a symbol combining sublimity in 
size with a profound mystery in meaning. Had the awed 
and astonished beholder then inquired, with reverential faith, 
what was the use and meaning of his glorious work, he would 
have been gravely answered by the venerable Hyksos some- 
what as follows: — " Friend, this thing which thou seest is a 



9 



symbolic monument — a pillar of witness in the midst of this 
land of Kemi and in the borders thereof — the truths contained 
in its construction being meant for all the nations of the 
earth, but which are now sealed up until the fulness of the 
time of their revelation shall have come. In it is shown, by 
measure commensurate with time, the dispensations allotted 
by God to the race of man. Also that supreme secret of 
His council into which the angels have desired to look — the 
time in the far future when the Eden promise shall be 
fulfilled — when Jehovah shall tabernacle in flesh — when the 
Shiloh shall appear as the incarnate word and mercy of God. 
And, moreover, it contains a record in measure of the earth's 
relations to the sun, the moon, and the stellar host of Heaven, 
and also standards of measure, both as to capacity and weight, 
for all time and all nations, as well as manifold other truths 
concerning earth relation and human destiny which have been 
revealed to me, and are symbolized in that monument on 
which you look, to be recognised and proclaimed in the latter 
days by those whom the foreknowledge of God has appointed 
to the work in that distant generation wherein the fulness of 
the times of the dispensations shall be completed." 

Such would have been an exposition of the primal truths 
respecting the use and meaning of the Great Pyramid ; but 
when the morning light of truth had passed away, and was 
succeeded by the evening shadows of distorted tradition, 
little, if any, of the original verity remained in the accounts 
given by the romancing Arab authors who treated of the 
monument. But following the twilight errors of mingled 
tradition and imagination came the thick darkness of absolute 
falsehood, when the primitive truth and the material form of 
the Pyramid were alike desecrated and despoiled by degraded 
and idolatrous generations, until error had reached its climax 



10 



in the belief that this once glorious but now ruined monument 
was simply and solely the vast mausoleum of an Egyptian 
king. 

The night of the Pyramid's degradation had indeed come — 
the darkest hour before dawn prevailed — when, in 1859, the 
theory propounded by the late John Taylor shed the first ray 
of returning light as to the primal meaning of the Pyramid ; 
his imperfect theory was taken up, examined, corrected, and 
carried forward with a strong hand by Piazzi Smyth, in 1864, 
and to-day the standard of the Pyramid is borne bravely 
onward to the van of mental conflict, supported by a cohort 
of gifted and zealous men who have carried it safely to 
victory through the brunt of that battle which the agents of 
error or mischief unceasingly wage against the revelations of 
God. 

Having thus briefly and imperfectly alluded to the primal 
condition and meaning of the Pyramid, I shall now subjoin a 
rescript of the notes made at the time of my visit to the 
monument in 1860, as being an average illustration of the 
tourist ideas of the period, leaving uncorrected the florid and 
superficial style and observations which they exhibit, and 
giving them chiefly as fairly descriptive of the present state 
of the Pyramid, from which the reader is left to imagine 
the courage, the perseverance, the zeal, and labour which 
were necessary in perfecting the painfully accurate work of 
measuring that mighty pile as it has been measured by Piazzi 
Smyth. I find my notes recording as follows: — 

" Having decided on visiting the Pyramid of Jeezeh next 
day, we removed from our hotel at Cairo to one situate on 
the Nile bank, opposite the Island of Geziret-El-Rhoda, and 
near the old city of El-Kahira. Riding out to our new 
residence in the cool of the evening, we found our change of 



11 



quarters one in every way for the better; our bed-rooms 
being large, cool, and opening on a balcony which overhung 
the river; while our host (an Italian) was civil to a degree, 
and leaving nothing to be desired in the resources of his 
cuisine. 

" My travelling companion having gone to write for the 
mail, I took my seat on the balcony, solaced by excellent 
coffee and a fragrant chibouque, and, yielding to the tranquil 
influence of the time and place, indulged in the medita- 
tions which they naturally evoked. There beneath my feet 
flowed the waters of old Nile, calling up by their passing 
murmur a train of historic associations connected with the 
mystery of their source ; how that in the old times before us, 
the finding of the ' fountains of the Nile ' had stirred into a 
passion for their discovery the minds of men famous in the 
world's history ; how Cyrus the Persian, and Cambyses, and 
Sesostris, and Alexander, and the Ptolemies, Julius Caesar, 
and others, had of old striven, but in vain, to discover its 
unknown springs; and how in modern times Cosmas the 
hermit, Peter Paez, Alphonso Mendez, Peter Heyling, and 
Bruce, laboured to solve the mystery of the Sihor's source, 
until in this our day the heroic perseverance of Livingstone 
promises to be crowned with well-earned success. I could 
not but reflect, too, how on such an evening as this the 
gentle daughter of Pharaoh, with her train of attendant 
maidens, found the infant Moses among the papyrus reeds of 
the opposite bank ; for, fond tradition tells how this beautiful 
island was the scene of that touching event. While thinking 
thus, the crew of a kanghia moored below the balcony set up 
a rude chant, one of the party accompanying himself on a 
stringed instrument, singing a verse, the remainder of the 
crew joining by voice and hand-clapping in the not unmusical 



12 



refrain. Just then changing my position, I looked out over 
the groves of plumy palm beyond Boulak, and there saw, 
tinted by the golden rays of the sinking sun, embalmed in 
the intense azure of the western heavens, rising up against 
the distant horizon, sharp and glowing, the perfect outline of 
the ancient Pyramids. 

" Those Pyramids and that river — how deep and solemn 
the lessons they conveyed to the soul. That glorious Nubian 
flood now gliding beneath my feet, fresh and beautiful as 
when at our planet's creation it first swept in gladsomeness 
to the sea. Those hoary Pyramids telling of the men, the 
nations, the dynasties, that have passed away since their 
erection, leaving a trace in the desert of Time faint as the 
footprint of a traveller in the sand, each and both proclaiming 
to the listening soul the evanescent nature of humanity, the 
eternal nature of God as reflected in the works of His hand. 

k * The evening air, soft, balmy, and delicious, came laden 
with the rich odours of spring from the gardens of El-Rhoda, 
and yielding to the magic influence of the place and time, I 
sank into a reverie which lasted until I was warned by the 
fall of night and the appearance of lights within my chamber 
to retire ; and, notwithstanding the fatigue and excitement of 
the day, it was far into the night before my waking dream 
passed into the region of sound and refreshing sleep. 

"Early next morning, having selected donkeys from a 
crowd of those animals which had been brought out from 
Cairo, we proceeded to the ferry below the southern point 
of the island, followed by the entire cavalcade of donkey- 
owners, who persistently urged their services on us, crowd- 
ing upon us so much that we had literally to fight our 
way through them until we were fairly on board the roomy 
ferry-boat which bore us to the village of Boulak, from which 



13 



we struck across the plain of Jeezeh. During the earlier 
portion of our ride a singular illusion prevailed as to distance, 
the Pyramids seeming to recede as we advanced. After about 
an hour's progress they appeared to stand still, as it were, 
and during the last part of our journey they looked as if 
growing vaster and vaster in size, until when at last we had 
reached their immediate vicinity, amazement had so com- 
pletely taken possession of the mind that it was not until 
some time had elapsed that our feelings found vent in words. 
We stood at the northern side of the most northern of the 
group — that known as the Pyramid of Cheops or Shofo — and 
looking along its base line of three hundred and fifty paces, 
and up at its vast stepped side to the dizzy apex four hundred 
and eighty feet above us in perpendicular height, and thought 
how the three other sides presented the same huge propor- 
tions, the mind slowly and almost painfully began to realise 
the enormous size of the mountainous building before us. 
Then came an effort to grasp and master the ' how ' of its 
construction by human skill and the hands of man, and the 
conviction that the boast of our age as to advance in all the 
arts should be reversed regarding the building works that 
had been done by the grand master masons of the old times 
before us. I may say in this connexion that no amount of 
reading about the Pyramids — no painting, engraving, or 
photograph — no effort of the most active imagination — can 
by any possibility give the true impression of their enormous 
size and massive construction. As it is with Niagara, so it 
is with the Pyramids— a long-continued and silent observa- 
tion alone conveys by slow degrees to the recipient mind the 
true and inspiring majesty of their magnitude. Nor are the 
whole of the proportions of the Great Pyramid now visible, 
as its sides are encroached on far up from the original base 



14 



platform by hills of sand and debris which have been accu- 
mulating there for thousands of years ; and, of the white 
marble-like casing which once covered it, not a trace remains, 
save small bits of breakage which may be discovered among 
the rubbish-heap at its foot. 

" When I had sufficiently recovered from my amazement, 
and while my fellow-traveller was arranging with the Sheik 
of the Pyramid as to charge for the ascent, I began to climb 
upwards at the north-east angle. The task was not an easy 
one, the lower tiers of the structure being not less than three 
feet or three feet six inches high, but before reaching the twen- 
tieth tier I was pursued and overtaken by tw T o of the Arab 
guides, the younger man being the most perfect specimen 
of the human shape 1 had ever seen. They came bounding 
up the layers, shouting and whooping in disjointed English ; 
passing me by a tier, they seized me unceremoniously by 
the wrists,- and pulled me up to their stand-point; then 
jumping up on the next row, repeated the process, at each 
time shouting out, ' W ell done ' — ' taib, howadji ' — ' Come 
along,' 4 No fear you,' ' Go ahead,' ' Very good,' ' All right 
you are,' &c, &c, with the most ludicrous emphasis. So 
rapid, and, I may say, so violent, was our progress, that 
when we had reached about one half of the height, I was 
completely out of breath, and refused to proceed until I had 
rested and recovered my breathing. This, it would seem, 
was the desired point with the guides, who now became 
loud in their demands for money. Finding I did not pay 
attention to their outcries, the younger man became quite 
violent in manner, gesticulating wildly, and approaching 
with frantic gesture and fierce look, he cried, ' Bucksheese, 
howadji ! — give me money or I throw you down,' pointing 
at the same time with outstretched arms and quivering 



15 



hands to the base. Glancing down, I saw that my friend 
had not yet begun the ascent, he and the group in which 
he stood looking like pigmies. I had regained my breath 
by this time, and felt the position was not by any means a 
pleasant one, as anything approaching a struggle would be 
certain to precipitate either or both four hundred feet down 
the steep face of the Pyramid. The fellow looked and 
acted mad enough to do anything; so, suddenly grasping 
my revolver, I presented it at his head. In an instant he 
dropped his arms, and stood rigid and silent as a statue. I 
did not speak, but motioned both the Arabs to the tier 
above, when, replacing my pistol, and grasping a wrist of 
each instead of letting them grasp mine, we proceeded up 
the remainder of the ascent much more slowly, and with 
less exertion, the height of the steps lessening as We neared 
the top. At length we reached the apex, which presented a 
level platform of, probably, fourteen feet square, and sitting 
down, looked out upon the glorious prospect which the posi- 
tion commanded. To the west lay the great Lybian desert — 
a soundless, scorching, desolate, and lifeless sand sea. To the 
east the plain of Jeezeh, verdure-clad and dotted with trees, 
stretched away to its boundary the broad and glittering 
Nile, beyond which rose the thousand domes and minarets 
of modern Cairo, while the range of the Gebel Mokattam 
formed a grand background to the charming picture. To the 
north, as far as the eye could reach, spread out the rich and 
fertile plain of the Delta, its beauty heightened by groves of 
the acacia and palm; while to the south the course of the 
ancient Sihor could be traced, winding like a ribbon of light 
through the rich valley of its coure. 

" But of the cities which once clustered in that valley 
there is now no trace— of Memphis and Heliopolis the names 



16 



alone remain, and the pyramids of Dashoor, Sakkara, and 
Abousir, seen in the far distance, seem as hoary witnesses of 
the dread decree — ' They shall he desolate in the midst of the 
countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be waste in 
the midst of the cities that are wasted.' Of the twenty 
thousand cities numbered by Herodotus, Thebes alone — that 
' Metropolis of Ruins' — can be said to remain as a witness of 
the ancient glory of Mizraim. 

" After enjoying the scene for some time, and finding the 
heat becoming oppressive, I prepared to descend; and, dis- 
missing the Arabs, resolved to go down by myself, but soon 
found that the descent was not so easy as I had supposed, 
requiring more care and steadiness of nerve than I had 
reckoned for. The plan adopted by me after the first few 
courses was to jump from layer to layer, not letting the eye 
wander from the tier immediately below, resting at intervals, 
so as to familiarise the eye with the dizzy height, and seeing 
that the foot-hold was clear to which I sprang. Observing 
this rule, the descent was safely effected, and in the cool 
shadow of the northern base I awaited the return of my 
friend, whom I met ascending (aided by three Arabs) on 
my way down. After he had joined me, and was sufficiently 
rested, we prepared to enter the Pyramid and explore the 
interior chambers. Our Arab attendants had provided 
themselves with lights, and I had a good reflecting lamp. 
The entrance passage is some distance up on the northern 
face, but considerably to the east of the central line of the 
building it descends at a sharp angle towards the central 
base for a distance of, I should say, eighty feet ; but being 
only about four feet high, and three and a half feet wide, we 
had to slide down in a sitting posture and rather summary 
manner; but even with such an imperfect opportunity for 



17 



observation, I was struck by the contrast which the masonry 
of the passage showed to the massive roughness of the exterior 
work — not only was the stone different in quality, but the 
jointing was of the most wonderfully perfect finish. The 
same remark will apply to the masonry of the other passages 
and that of the chambers. 

"At the bottom of the entrance passage we descended into 
a void space on the west, from which we were lifted up by the 
attendants into an ascending passage rising toward the centre 
of the Pyramid at an angle similar to that of the entrance 
passage, making it necessary to crawl up on the hands and 
knees. This posture, and the suffocating closeness of the 
air, with the imperfect light and the howling din kept up by 
the Arabs, rendered anything like close observation impos- 
sible. After some time we reached a horizontal passage run- 
ning due south, pursuing which, in a stooping posture, we 
entered what is known as the Queen's Chamber, the roof of 
which is angular, and having nothing remarkable in it save 
a niche graduated toward the top, sunk in the east wall, 
seeming to be about eight feet high — an extreme height 
if meant to hold a mummy. Eetracing our way, we reached 
the ascending passage again, and proceeded upward to the 
King's Chamber. The upper part of the passage is quite 
high, and I wished much for better light and a quiet oppor- 
tunity of examining its proportions. After laborious crawling 
along a narrow ledge, then crouching through an ante-room 
and low passage, we found ourselves in the noble apartment 
known as the King's Chamber. This grand room, by rough 
pacing measure, is 34 feet X 18? and has a height of 18 or 19 
feet at least. It is walled and roofed with great cyclopean 
stones, the workmanship being of the very highest order of 
excellence. Two small square apertures exist in the walls, 

B 



18 



meant either for ventilating purposes, or as acoustic tubes 
reaching to other apartments in the Pyramid. At the west 
end of the room stands the mutilated sarcophagus of Cheops, 
cut from a stone of such dense and fine grain that it rang like 
metal when struck by the Arabs with hammers, as they 
strove to chip off a specimen for my fellow-traveller ; I felt 
very glad indeed that they did not succeed in their efforts. 
It is about seven feet six inches long, and, like the niche in 
the Queen's Chamber, unreasonably large in every way for a 
mummy case. The frantic yells of the Arabs, the tan- 
talising imperfection of the light, and the oppressively close 
atmosphere, rendered me anxious to get once more into the 
light of day and the fresh air of heaven; and when we once 
more emerged from the gloomy recesses of the Pyramid in 
which we had been immured for nearly two hours, I felt 
physically exhausted, as well as mentally dissatisfied with the 
result of our exploration. Some faint idea may be formed of 
the size of the Pyramid by reflecting that it is capable of 
containing 3,700 rooms the size of the King's Chamber, and 
doubtless it holds within its mass many other chambers which 
remain as yet undiscovered ; but I am inclined to believe that 
although the Pyramid may have had a sepulchral use, it must 
also have been meant for the holding of mysterious rites by 
the Egyptian Magi. Regarding it in the former light, I 
could not but reflect — while standing beside the sarcophagus 
of the great Egyptian king, who had in this central chamber 
of the Pyramid ' builded himself a desolate place,' as Job 
expresses it, such a sepulchre as Isaiah speaks of in saying, 
' The kings of the nations lie in glory, every one in his own 
house' — how vain the hope of the monarch, how false the 
faith which had raised the mountainous pile within whose 
centre we then stood — that mighty mausoleum in whose 



19 



heart of stone he had hoped to secure for his ashes an immor- 
tality of sacred rest, the contemplation of death, soothed by 
the belief that when inhumed there, and when the great port- 
cullises of stone were dropped one by one into their places 
across the passages, and when the outer entrance was builded 
up and cunningly hidden — then, said this mighty king in his 
heart, ' There I shall rest in separate, sacred, awful security 
of solitude, until the angel of life returns to revivify my 
body, when it shall be found by the messenger of the gods 
unprofaned by mortal eye, untouched by the hand of time ! ' 

"It was the grand thought of a great king in an age of 
error and of false faith. Nor do I envy those who, in a 
wiser age and of a pure faith, affect by a shallow criticism to 
undervalue or despise the majesty of the idea which the 
Pyramids embody and immortalise. But to-day the futility 
of the monarch's hope, the falsity of his belief, is proven, for 
his sacred chamber is trodden by the travellers of every 
clime — around his empty sarcophagus the sons of Ishmael 
whoop and shriek; and, seeing this, we feel that there are 
few places on earth where the sadly solemn reflection of 
Solomon has more force, as we mentally sigh with the wise 
man, ' Vanity of vanities — all is vanity.' " 

With this introduction, I shall now proceed to set forth a 
condensed account of the Pyramid revelations as they have 
been translated by the aids of modern science, and as con- 
trasting with the foregoing tourist ideas of seventeen years 
ago. 

c. c. 

June, 1877. 



PHILITIS. 



PART I. — 1 8 7 2. 

I have chosen for the title of this brochure the name of that 
wonderful Palestinian architect, Philitis, whose work in 
Siriad or Egypt, with the amazing revelations which modern 
science, within the last decade, has made known in con- 
nexion with it, are set forth in a condensed summary in the 
following pages, from which it will be seen that the structure 
known as the " Great Pyramid " in Egypt — held by western 
nations, for the past 3,000 years, to be merely the tomb of 
the fourth dynasty king, Cheops or Shofo — is in reality the 
most wonderful structure ever raised on our globe, no less 
as being the oldest, largest, and highest stone building ever 
piled by the hands of man, than as being an exponent of 
sacred and scientific truths of the most exalted and prac- 
tically important kind; equally interesting to the scientist, 
the historian, and the believer in Revelation, and calling the 
attention of the thinkers of our age — religious and philo- 
sophical — to the most remarkable discovery that has been 
vouchsafed to our generation. 

Thus far was w r ritten in 1872 ; but since then the whole 
subject has been clearing so rapidly from the mist of all the 



22 



past ages, ever since civilised nationality has existed on this 
globe, that it would seem as if we were now on the very 
point of being able to declare positively that " Philitis " was 
no other than the Melchizedek of the Bible, and the great 
pyramid that altar or pillar — i.e., monument — which Isaiah 
(ch. xix.) announced would be manifested in Egypt during 
the last times, especially as a sign and a witness to the God 
of Revelation. 

It may be well, in introducing this view of the great 
pyramid, to allude briefly to the entire number of those struc- 
tures, by name, which stretch for some fifty geographical 
miles along the western reach of the Nile valley, where just 
the Lybian desert and the cultivated land struggle for exten- 
sion — the traditionary mythical warfare of Typhon and 
Osiris — their line extending from nearly opposite modern 
Cairo, and ancient Heliopolis, to past the site of the still 
more ancient Memphis, and embraced between 29° 59' and 
30° 4/ north latitude. They are thirty-eight in number, of 
which only one — viz., that known as the " Great Pyramid," or 
" the Pyramid of Cheops or Shofo," the facile princeps of the 
whole genus — may be called a true pyramid ; thirty-four of 
the number being rude imitations, only approximately true ; 
and the remaining three, although classed as pyramids, 
scarcely to be called so, when speaking critically. 

The following table, for which I am indebted to the 
Astronomer Royal of Scotland, will give a concise view of 
the present and ancient height of each in British inches, and 
as close an approximation to the absolute date of erection as 
can be arrived at. 

Commencing at the most southerly, we find : — 



23 





Present 


Ancient 






Height 


Height 


Date 


Pyramid or Pyramids 


in 


in 


of 


British 


131 1L1SI1 


Erection 




Inches 


Inches 




Two of Biamoo .... 


360 


X 


1800 b.c. 


One of Howara (ruinous) - 


1,270 


X 


1850 „ 


One of Illahoon (ruinous) - 


1,580 


X 




One of Meydoom (flat-topped) 


1,494 


X 




Southern of Lisht (ruinous) 


822 


X 


1900 " 


Northern of Lisht (ruinous) 


1,080 


X 




Southern of Dashoor (brick) 


1,872 


3,208 


51 5J 


Small of Dashoor , - - 


816 


1,281 


1950 „ 


Southern Stone of Dashoor (2 slopes) 


3.834 


4,029 




Northern Stone of Dashoor 


3,918 


4,111 




Northern brick of Dashoor 


980 


2,586 




Base of Mustabet El Farahoon 


650 


720 




9th at Saccara (ruined) 


900 


X 


2000 "„ 


8th at Saccara (ruined) 


1,044 


X 




7th at Saccara (ruined) 


330 


X 




6th at' Saccara (ruined) 


960 


X 




5th at Saccara (ruined) 


480 


X 




4th at Saccara (ruined) 


740 


X 




3rd at Saccara (the great) 


2,200 


2,405 


2050 „ 


2nd at Saccara - - - 


1,300 


1,758 


» j> 


1st at Saccara (ruined) 


700 


X 




Small of Aboosier 


216 


564 




Great of Aboosier 


1,970 


2,734 


2100 " 


Middle of Aboosier - - 


1,284 


2,056 




Northern of Aboosier 


1,400 


1,953 




Northern of Beegah (2 slopes) 


500 


1,150 




Northern of Zowat El Arrian (ruined) 


730 


X 




Northern of Aboo Boash (ruined com- 








mencement) - - - - 


480 


X 




9th at Jeezeh .... 


960 


1,221 


>) j> 


8th at Jeezeh 


660 


1,332 




7th at Jeezeh - - - - 


540 


1,332 


» j> 


6th at Jeezeh - 


834 


1,440 




5th at Jeezeh .... 


1,000 


1,119 




4th at Jeezeh - - - 


834 


1,440 


2130 " 


3rd at Jeezeh .... 


2,436 


2,616 


2100 „ 


2nd at J eezeh .... 


5,370 


5,451 


2130 „ 


The Great at Jeezeh 


5,410 


5,828 


2170 „ 



Thirty-four of the foregoing have been designed (with 
more or less outside, but unmeaning, resemblance as to form) 
on the model of the last in the list, but the first in point of 
time — viz., the oldest, largest, and most northern of the line, 



24 



that which all nations and tongues have almost intuitively 
called the * ' Great Pyramid" — standing on the levelled crest 
of Jeezeh Hill, at the southern angle of the Delta. With 
this, the original and true pyramid, before us, we are led to 
reflect that, as to the peculiar shape, it is in a manner a repre- 
sentation of the half of one of the five solids of geometers, 
viz., the octahedron, which primarily points to a scientific, 
rather than to an art, use and meaning ; nor do we know of 
any form in nature, unless the diamond, and that is not of the 
exact angle, which could have suggested the design. It is, 
therefore, as to architectural shape or form, peculiarly origi- 
nal, special, and unique. The question next arising is, as to 
its use and meaning? — and here we enter on a discussion 
which it is as well to consider fully in this place. 

Until within the last eighteen years there prevailed among 
all western peoples a belief that this structure, in common 
with the others passing under the same name, was merely a 
tomb — a mighty mausoleum — of the fourth dynasty king, 
known as Cheops or Shofo; a belief strengthened, if not 
originated, by the undeniable fact that all the later pyramids, 
copied to some extent from this the great original structure, 
were meant for, and used as, sepulchral monuments, there 
being found in each a basement or a subterranean chamber 
for the reception of the mummy, and in some of them the 
bodies of those they were built to inhume. And perhaps the 
better way is to state here, in its strongest form, the argu- 
ment which has been so strenuously advanced by the tomb 
theorists, and compare as we proceed its relevancy and force 
as opposed to the modern theory of the sacred and scientific 
use and meaning of this the one, and only, great pyramid. 

In the first place, I will admit the possibility of Cheops or 
Shofo resolving to have a tomb built which would effectually 



25 



preserve his mummied body for all time, and (following the 
traditionary account given by the Egyptian priests to Hero- 
dotus 1725 years after the erection of the pyramid, and 445 
years before the Christian era) grant that he confided the 
execution of his order to the architect, Philitis — a most 
remarkable man of the Noah and Enoch type of mind, who 
lived 150 years before Abraham, and 670 years before Moses, 
described as an oriental Hyksos or Shepherd King (but to 
that point we shall return presently) — who, accepting the 
order, designed and built a structure which, while it might 
be used as a tomb, did nevertheless contain, though not exhibit 
to the men of that age, a series of cosmic truths of the 
highest order, and in the most accurate manner — truths, not 
of a local or temporary kind, but suited in their relation to 
nations of a very high state of intellectual cultivation ; for it is, 
in fact, only in proportion to the growth of modern science that 
men have been enabled to recognise the existence of those truths 
built into the structure of the great pyramid, not in language, 
not in inscription^ but in number, weight, and measure. 

It will be seen that this concession alters the issue, and the 
question, therefore, is not whether this structure was meant 
by Egyptian Shofo or Cheops for a tomb, or even was used 
as such, but is — Did Philitis, the architect — who was not an 
Egyptian, but a temporary sojourner in the land, from Pales- 
tine — did he introduce into it all or any of the scientific truths 
to which I will hereafter allude? and which are capable of 
being tested by all or any who may consider them assumptions. 

The next feature to be noticed is the existence of a subter- 
ranean chamber, situated 106 feet vertically below the base 
of the great pyramid, hewn out of the solid rock, and reached 
by an inclined tunnel of some 300 feet in length. This 
chamber is unfinished; contained no mummy; would seem 



26 



never to have been used; but still will bear an apologetic 
explanation in the tomb theory — viz., that its unfinished state 
and desertion resulted possibly from a change in the mind of 
Cheops, who may have desired a superterrene, instead of a 
subterranean, sepulchral chamber. Well, I will accept such 
attempt at explanation, the more readily as it is no more a 
part of the question at issue than that the unfinished vault is 
a part of the pyramid above it. It is merely a speculative 
analogical theory, drawn from subsequently-built structures, 
with nothing in their interior except a sepulchral chamber, 
and, therefore, though called pyramids, constructed from an 
idea and for a use alike degenerate from the design and 
meaning of the architect, Philitis. 

This conclusion, however, remaining to be proved, I will 
now proceed to consider some points and features in the work 
of this inspired oriental architect, with the best aids which 
the most advanced modern science affords, and see how far 
the results will quadrate with the theory of the great pyramid 
being merely a tomb. 

In the first place, w T e find that the architect chose for the 
point of erection a place which was eminently inconvenient 
for constructional purposes, as the rocky outcrop of the 
Jeezeh Hill had to be cut down and levelled, but which posi- 
tion was essential to a grand transcendental geodesic design, 
it being in the thirtieth parallel of latitude, the very parallel 
w T hich has to the north and south of it an equal distribution of 
terrestrial semi-surface; while the pyramid's site itself is the 
very point on the earth's surface about which the dry land, or 
man-inhabitable portion of the globe, is equally arranged, and 
is also on the very best line for meridianal zero which could 
be chosen for all nations. 

This is a primary pyramidal fact, easily tested, and most 



27 



important in a scientific point of view ; but if looked at from 
the " sepulchral " stand-point, a dispassionate candour must 
admit that this very remarkable position was not, by any 
conceivable necessity, required in a mere tomb meant for an 
ordinary king, but was of the utmost importance in a scien- 
tific structure, intended to speak in a subsequent day to all 
mankind. Yet were this a solitary scientific indication, it 
would have but a limited significance; but as one, and the 
primary point, it stands a remarkable fact, uncompeted with 
by any other building, ancient or modern, and challenges 
refutation by actual test — not by verbal cavil or speculation. 

We next find that this structure (call it a tomb if you will) 
was designed and built in its entirety on a plan so scientifi- 
cally perfect, that the sum of the measured four sides of base 
bears, within the nearest possible practical approach, the same 
relation to the measure of its vertical height that the circum- 
ference of a circle bears to its radius. Now, this very 
extraordinary and very large-sized expression of a peculiar 
ratio (7rX2) was certainly not necessary in a tomb, as proven 
by the also large contiguous pyramid of Cephrenes, and by 
each and all of the thirty-four others, not one of which con- 
tains the ratio. But it was essential in a scientific structure 
such as the pyramid was designed to be, and consequently it 
exists, appealing to confirmatory test, and not to be got over 
or set aside by the humorous puerility of such men as 
Simpson,* it being a fact as demonstrable as that the three 
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. 

* The late Sir James Simpson, M.D., who thought it well to ridicule the 
great pyramid theory rather than entertain the arguments in its support — his 
ambition being rather to twinkle as a humorist than to shine as a philosopher. 
But there has since appeared another James Simpson, with a different faculty — 
a modest and mathematical man — who enjoys the honour to have made some 
of the most advanced and exact discoveries yet reached in the revelation of the 
great pyramid. — (1874.) 



28 



We next find that a certain standard measure was used 
by the architect in the construction of all the expressional 
features of the pyramid; that standard was a cubit of 5X5 
pyramid inches; and when one side of the square base is 
measured, it is found to contain this cubit 365 times with a 
fraction plus ; thus giving our sidereal year of days, and the 
plus fractions of the four sides giving, in their sum, the equi- 
valent of one day in four years, or showing leap year in the 
cycle of four years, such cycle being indicated in the four 
pyramidal sides. 

Now, here is a feature derived from astronomy — a science 
not known with any approach to exactitude by the men 
of that time — quite unnecessary in a mausoleum, and not 
existing in any one of the other mere tomb pyramids, but 
a feature essential to chronometric structure meant to be 
revealed in future ages, and consequently expressed in the 
measurement of this vast monument, positively, and in the 
most enduring manner. 

We next discover that this huge pile of solid masonry, 
covering an area of thirteen English acres, having a substance 
of upwards of five million tons of stone, and rising to a height 
of 486 feet (the highest, largest, and most ponderous stone 
structure ever raised by the hands of man), was built to a 
microscopic closeness, accurately square, and astronomically 
oriented. It is, therefore, quite legitimate to ask if those 
features were essential to a tomb? and the reply is obvious. 
But they are essential to a structure of scientific indications, 
intended to be proved and rendered vocal by the applications 
of modern science, and accordingly they exist indisputably 
expressive in the structure under consideration. 

Further investigation reveals to us a still more impressive 
fact, viz.. that the vertical height of this pyramid, which has 



29 



already spoken in its practical manner of the time of the 
earth's circulation around the sun in its annual orbit, does 
likewise speak of the radius of that orbit; for the vertical 
height, as measured in terms of any linear measure, when 
multiplied by its own indicated numbers 10 9 , gives, in the 
same terms, the mean distance of the sun from our earth — a 
most extraordinary knowledge exhibition 4,000 years ago, 
when we reflect that even in the time of Herodotus the sun- 
distance was supposed to be not more than 10 or 12 miles, 
increased knowledge, through successive centuries, increas- 
ing the distance to 14,000, 3,000,000, up to 36,000,000, 
78,000,000, until, at end of eighteenth century, the estimate 
had overpassed the truth in a. statement of 95,000,000 of 
miles as the sun-distance; and it is only within a very few 
years that the error in observation has been so far corrected 
as to give results between 91,000,000 and 93,000,000 of 
miles. Those who are unacquainted with the difficulty of 
the work, and therefore wonder at a difference of 2,000,000 
or 3,000,000 of miles, may reneet a little when informed that 
an error of 3,000,000 miles would depend on observation of 
three-tenths of a second of space, or let us say a breadth 
equal to the thickness of a fine hair at 100 feet distance ; and 
all the civilised nations of the earth have, at this very time, 
commissioned, not merely one or two savants, but many 
well-appointed and most expensively-equipped expeditions to 
different parts of the world, each and all working to their 
utmost, in the hope that, by combining the results of their 
various efforts, they may be able, in this year of our Lord 1874, 
to arrive at a somewhat more accurate determination than that 
which was obtained from the last transit of the planet Yenus 
over the disc of the sun. But the divinely-informed architect 
of the great pyramid stated long ages before man began to 



30 



make scientific effort, and in the solid form above alluded to, 
that the sun-distance is 91,837,497 miles — a distance to which 
the most recent science-measure now closely approaches. 

We are here constrained to ask emphatically if this feature 
of the very highest order of cosmic truth was to be looked 
for in a mere tomb? The answer of candour must be in the 
negative. But in a structure raised by an inspired man, and 
meant as a teacher, through means of science, to all nations, 
such a revelation is essential, and accordingly it has been 
given, and stands to be questioned of by all men. 

Next it appears that the cubit of 25 pyramid inches bears 
an exact relation to the only true and unchanging standard 
in the knowledge of man, viz., the polar axis of the earth, of 
whose semi-length or distance from the earth's centre to 
either pole this sacred cubit of the pyramid architect is the 
ten-millionth part precisely. Now, in building a mere tomb, 
it would seem to an unbiassed thinker that any of the profane 
cubits — that of Memphis, of about 21 inches, or the Baby- 
lonian, of nearly the same length — would have suited equally 
well. Indeed, Sir Isaac Newton, proceeding on many data 
of early measures, went on to show that the pyramid had been 
partly built with the Egyptian cubit as a general working 
standard; but, although this might be suitable in a mauso- 
leum structure, it would not be consistent with the character 
of a building meant to express sacred Hebraic revelation and 
scientific truths, and accordingly we find that, although the 
profane measure has been used in the general, gross, and 
merely filling masonry, still the Hebrew or sacred cubit of 
25 pyramid inches has been exclusively used in all and every 
part of the indicative portions of the work. Noticing this 
all-prevailing feature in the interior work of the pyramid, 
does it not naturally occur to the mind that, while in building 



31 



a mere tomb, an inch or two in the standard would make no 
difference whatever, so long as the work was strong and 
cunningly done, yet that as a second and peculiar measure 
has been not only used, but definitely and impressively 
indicated (as in the standard bar or granite leaf of the ante- 
chamber to the king's room), the structure was designed to 
express sacred and scientific truth, to w T hich end this standard 
and no other was essential, and therefore it was used through- 
out, and now reveals the meaning of that use in the chief 
passages, chambers, and, above all, in the coffer. 

Again, we find that the pyramid inch is critically the five 
hundred-millionth part of the earth's axis length, and that 
when the length of the diagonals of the base is found in such 
inches their sum exactly expresses the precession of the 
equinox in an inch to a year — namely, 25,827 years. This 
would undeniably seem a superfluous feature in a mere tomb, 
but it is a grand and unimpeachable fact in a scientific 
structure, and accordingly there it is existing and solidified 
by a weight of five million tons of massive stone masonry. 

But the mummy of the king required a sarcophagus, and 
so we find one, according to the tomb theorists, in the great 
central and upper chamber. Let us look closely at it — for 
truly it is the most remarkable ashes-coffer (if it was meant 
for such) that the world has ever seen — not, indeed, as a 
flattering proof of art in the designer, for it is plain, totally 
devoid of ornament or carving, a most bald and democratic 
burial place for a mighty king — unseemly, large, and un- 
necessarily out of proportion in height for such a purpose. 
But as a scientifically pregnant coffer, it is a marvellous 
illustration of the designer's skill and knowledge ; for we find 
that the mass of its sides and bottom is cubically identical 
with its internal space capacity, viz., 72,250 cubic inches; 



32 



also, that the length of two of its adjacent sides is to its 
height as the circumference of a circle to its diameter; again, 
that the exterior volume is double the interior capacity, and 
that the sides and ends are twice that of the bottom; more- 
over, that when taken wholly, it stands in relation to the 
lower course of the king's chamber as the one-fiftieth part in 
capacity. Noting which, with unprejudiced reflection, one 
feels compelled to inquire if this remarkable construction and 
relation was necessary in a sarcophagus? to which question 
conviction replies certainly not ; but it was essential to a 
scientific unity of the room and coffer, and so it stands an 
inflexibly positive scientific fact. 

Additionally we find that this remarkable stone burial case 
(if it will still be so claimed) corresponds with the sacred, later, 
and divinely-planned ark of the Mosaic tabernacle in space 
capacity, although infinitely more massive and durable in its 
material. Its contents capacity is also found to be precisely 
equal to the Hebrew laver, four chomers, and to that of the 
old Saxon chaldron; also that its contents in water at 68° 
Fahrenheit, and barometer register at 30 inches, weighs 
critically one ton of 2,500 lbs., each of which pounds (within 
half an ounce of a pound, avoirdupois) is equal to five cubic 
inches of the earth's mean density ; together with manifold 
other indications, all or any of which would seem superfluous 
in a burial case, but which are supremely necessary in a 
scientific and divinely appointed standard of weight and 
capacity measure for all times and all nations ; and, conse- 
quently, we find it thus sacredly preserved in the very heart 
of this mountainous mass — the jewel, as it were, encased in a 
stupendous casket of enduring stone — while the real sepulchral 
sarcophagus of King Cheops or Shofo is a rude thing, 
desecrated and re-used by the later Egyptians themselves, in 



35 



25th course of masonry ; and the king's chamber on the 50th, 
and the antechamber of the latter. Looking at this question 
in connexion with the masonry courses, there would seem to 
be a remarkable indication of a chamber on the 100th course, 
thus: — * 

The vertical height of 5th course from base is 223 inches. 
That of the 25th course „ 869 „ 

50th „ „ 1,686 „ 

100th „ „ 3,052 „ 



which gives the sum of 5,830 inches, 

or the original vertical height of the finished and perfect 
pyramid, within a residual difference of two inches. On two 
of the above courses chambers have been found, conveying an 
indication of a chamber on the 100th course, as the 5th course 
has its significance in the commencement of the first ascending 
passage. 

It now remains to mention how this revelation of the 
pyramid's true meaning came before the public. The late 
Mr. John Taylor, of Gower-street, London, some seventeen 
years ago, was led by a study of the pyramid's construction to 
conclude that it was not merely a king's tomb, but a scientific 
structure — a bold and striking protest agamst the prevailing 
faith of 3,000 years ; and he accordingly published his ideas 
in 1859, in his work — The Great Pyramid: Why was it Built, 
and Who Built it? In this work the new theory, or rather 
the old and true use and meaning of the pyramid, was set 
forth in a limited, rudimentary, and imperfect manner; but 
was followed up by him with a pamphlet on the same subject 
in 1864, which so impressed Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer 
Royal of Scotland, that he resolved to test the theory by 
actual and scientific measurement. Accordingly, having 



36 



provided himself with the best instruments that the most 
advanced skill could produce — from a scale 'which gave 
readings under magnifying glass to '002 of an inch up to the 
great " Slider," with a length capacity of 350 inches, and 
angle-measuring instruments of proportionate character — he, 
at his own exclusive cost, undertook a work more thorough 
and laborious than that performed by the French Acade- 
micians in 1798. Accompanied by his heroic wife, he spent 
four months at the pyramid, living in a tomb, and working 
assiduously, sometimes by night as well as day, until he had 
completed the most minute and laborious set of observations 
and measurements that has ever been bestowed on any building. 
The difficulty of the labour cannot possibly be understood 
fully by those who have not seen that huge structure rising 
up in 201 courses of Cyclopean masonry, toiled up to the dizzy 
apex, and penetrated through its suffocating passages, even as 
transient visitors (a labour which the writer has a vivid re- 
membrance of, though many years have elapsed since his 
experience of its difficulties). The results of Piazzi Smyth's 
expedition were given to the world on his return in 1867. 
in Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, a work in which 
the whole subject is exhaustively treated and demonstration 
established — on fhe one side, of the non-Egyptian character ; 
and on the other, of the Biblical, sacred, and highly scientific 
nature (even to modern scientific test) of the structure known 
as the great pyramid, supposed for so many generations to be 
merely the tomb of a king.* "When any rational man has 
read that work, he is compelled to admit its conclusions, 
however much chagrin it may cost him to renounce a long- 

* Followed up since then by still further developments of the subject in the 
second edition of his work, " Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," published 
by Isbister and Co., London. IS 74. 



37 



believed-in theory ; for, to imagine that its manifold and 
marvellous expressions of sacred and scientific truth are 
accidental and without knowing design on the part of the 
architect, would prove the existence of an unsearching cre- 
dulity as gross as that which would doubt the axioms of 
Euclid. 

As might have been expected, this book caused an excite- 
ment amongst Egyptologists commensurate with its startling 
discoveries, and was received by many with derision, by others 
with the most acrimonious opposition ; but, fortunately, the 
author was a scientist — a pyramidal-minded man — with a 
Carlylean terseness of expression, one who could not be put 
down by the puerile witticisms of Simpson or the more measured 
opposition of General Sir Henry James, any more than his 
measurements and the deductions therefrom could be over- 
turned by mere verbiage; and, in consequence, we find that 
with the thinkers of our time, men not held in the bonds of 
prejudice, as well as with the general unscientific reader, the 
work has steadily won its way to acceptance, evoking an echo 
of belief from every quarter of the world. The question 
would arise, What motive could induce a man holding the 
position of the writer, and professionally engaged in the study 
of the most absorbing and the most exalted science of man, to 
take up, and follow out, the theory of Taylor? — not vanity, 
or the unrest of mental ennui, for position, eminence, and 
laborious duties alike answer in the negative; not gain, for 
the experimental test involved an expense few would incur 
for the verification of scientific facts, and still fewer have 
individually undertaken what would more properly have been 
a Government work — a work so ponderous that even now, to 
gain residual accuracy, not to speak of thorough exploration 
for additional chambers, no less a sum than £12,000 would be 



38 



required; which sum, it is to be desired, the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer would be induced to grant for the thorough 
solution of the most practically interesting discovery of our 
age,* connected with the past and future of intellectual and 
religious man. However, truth grows, and hope waits ; and, 
as Philitis built up this solid stone apostle, so, after a lapse of 
four thousand years, a few comparatively poor but earnest, 
qualified, and laborious workers, have been privileged to 
rebuild its ruined significance, and, literally, to find for all 
the world " sermons in stone," or rather " the very stones 
crying out." 

It will be remembered that the pyramid when completed 
was cased with rubbed lime-stone slabs, like those which still 
remain on the upper portion of the pyramid called Cephrenes, 
and presented from the hand of the builder a solid-mass surface 
without any visible opening, and that, for the first certainly 
known time, about 3,000 years after its erection, the Arab, 
Caliph Al Mamoon, broke in an entrance on the north side 
with the hope of discovering the vast treasures which tradition 
had said were concealed in its chambers. The result of his 
labour was the discovery of the true passages and the chambers 
to which they led, but no treasures such as he hoped for. The 
rooms were empty, with the exception of a stone coffer, empty 
and lidless, found in the principal chamber. From that date 
to 1859, though some stray ideas of a metrical order were 
occasionally ventilated, the learned in Egyptology allowed the 
pyramid to be alluded to only as a mighty mausoleum ; and, 
had not the discovery in its perfection, of a totally different 

* The " Challenger" Dredging Expedition, now at work, and to be continued 
for four years, is costing £20,000 per annum. The Polar Expedition, just 
authorised by Government, is expected to cost £60,000 ; and the late mission 
of Sir Bartle Frere, to confer with the Sultan of Mozambique on the matter of 
the slave trade, cost £71,000. 



43 



from the bottom of which a passage leads westerly for a short 
space to the edge of a dark, almost perpendicular, abyssmal 
shaft, which leads down, down, down, into the deep and dismal 
subterranean descending passage, just before it falls into the 
Hades chamber or pit, which lies some 180 feet down in the 
living rock. Now, at an inch to a year along the line of the 
floor of the grand gallery, this sepulchral chamber shows the 
date of Calvary in our Lord's life. The inhumation of His 
body in the tomb and His resurrection therefrom are exhibited 
(in the stone that covered the entrance to that sepulchral well 
being burst out or rolled back with triumphant power from 
its mouth) in mechanical features, which speak as incontestably 
to the eye of science as eloquently as to that of faith — that 
the grave could not detain Him beyond the appointed time. 

Thus and here we have the death, burial, and resurrection 
of the Messiah shown ; and also the " passage " and " well " 
proof that it is only through His death and acknowledgment 
of His resurrection, that the Gentiles may hope to enter into, 
and partake of, the Christian dispensation, and be thus saved 
from falling into the bottomless pit, towards which their pride- 
ful and wilful following the machinations and idolatries of 
their own hearts has been leading them on in one continued 
downward course ever since the dispersion and their throwing 
off the patriarchal teaching of God. Many other distinguish- 
ing features in the principle of revealed salvation to man, and 
his future destiny, seem moulded forth in other features of the 
great pyramid's internal architecture ; but the foregoing may 
be sufficient to beget an interest in the minds of believers, 
and unbelievers also, as to the solemn importance of the varied 
revealed truths of the great sacred and scientific pyramid m, 
but not of, Egypt. 



44 



PAET II— 1874. 

No sooner had the views enunciated in the former part been 
published than they were rather hostilely taken up and ques- 
tioned by some modern scientists, whose comment may be said 
to have taken this form — " If the claims of the great pyramid 
rest on science, you ought to supply more microscopically 
accurate data than those published if you expect to gain the 
attention of the learned world of the nineteenth century." 
But in this comment those modern scientists omitted to notice 
the closer approach to critical truth — exact results — and the 
smaller limits of error, when the measures of the great pyramid 
came to their ultimate application in the grand cosmical 
problem of sun-distance, than what the combined scientific 
results of all the modern world have shown up to the present 
time ; when something like a million of money is being given 
to modern science to try again de novo, with the hope of its 
possibly attaining, by these extravagant means, somewhat 
better in the way of certainty than it has hitherto been able 
to supply. This fact was omitted from the reflection of those 
learned men when they applied themselves to a consideration 
of the differences between the figures of different measures of 
the base-side length merely of the great pyramid — thus em- 
ploying their criticism on the husk, as it were, of the subject, 
to the exclusion of a consideration of the kernel. 

Those differences, however, are in reality the errors of many 
modern learned men themselves, and are not in any degree 
chargeable to the ancient architect; for the actual base-side 
length, as built by him, is one and unalterable — as far as any- 
thing on earth, coming from the hands of man, can be ; and if 
accuracy of deduction failed in one part of the general research, 
owing to rough or imperfect modern measure of one portion 



45 



of the pyramid, yet the same great cosmical physical truths 
were also bound up, and should have been searched for, in the 
size, shape, &c, of other parts of the structure — viz , in the 
interior portion of the pyramid, which, being in a better state 
of preservation, was much more amenable to the efforts of one 
good earnest man, fully qualified for the work, than the large 
and dilapidated exterior, and consequently has been better 
measured in modern times by, not one only, but several pains- 
taking men, who have obtained a greater uniformity in results 
than Government expeditions have on the exterior, without, 
too, at the time of their measures, knowing that there was 
anything important symbolized by what they were then 
measuring. Hence the grand truths existing all the time in 
the antechamber of the king's room have only come to light 
in the short interval between publication of first and second 
editions of " Philitis," although measures sufficiently accurate 
had already been made, printed, and published over the world 
for some years, requiring only the Promethean spark of the 
true idea to animate in a moment the truths which lay buried 
in its symbolism, and had been involuntarily prepared for 
animation. 

The modern measurers, therefore, have done their part — 
the measures of the ancient building had been taken with 
sufficient accuracy and published — but the mind of modern 
times was not acute enough to penetrate the idea involved. 
Thus, the length of the king's chamber has been before the 
world (given to the hundredth of an inch, or to three places 
of decimals) for more than two hundred years (the interval 
occurring between the measurement by that early Professor 
of Astronomy at Oxford, John Greaves, when he visited the 
pyramid in 1638, and the exhaustive measurements made by 
the present Astronomer Eoyal for Scotland, Piazzi Smyth, 



46 



in 1865). But during all that time no scientific importance 
whatever was attached by any one in the world to that 
particular length; and the remarkable manner in which its 
meaning came out at last is worthy of attention, showing, 
as it does, how number, weight, and measure, eminently 
pervade the one uniform plan which dominently rules the 
whole structure — a plan which makes each part necessary 
to every other part, thus rendering it a sort of holy ground 
to the scientist, who finds in that amazingly vast building 
nothing of accident, nothing without a definite place and 
purpose in the general plan, and that plan, taken in it's 
entirety, one of the most exalted character of which it is 
possible to conceive. 

The first fruits of the new harvest of more exact facts were 
obtained when Major Tracey, R.A., studying in his artillery 
quarters at Bermuda the descriptions and measures contained 
in " Life and Work," was struck by the undoubted fact 
therein mentioned without a thought of its importance — viz., 
that the floor of the antechamber to the king's room is con- 
structed partly in granite, and partly in limestone ; that the 
granite portion measures 103 '03 pyramid inches, and the 
whole length 116*26 inches, and that these numbers exhibit 
the squaring of circle problem again in a different form to 
that exhibited in the whole building — viz., by the area of 
the respective figures concerned — L e., the area of a square 
measuring 103 03 on the side, is equal to the area of a circle 
having 116'26 for its diameter. 

Now, this areal proportion would of course come out equally 
in whatever terms of measure that parti-coloured plan should 
be measured in by modern men. But it was presently further 
discovered by James Simpson, St. John Vincent Day, Pro- 
fessor Hamilton L. Smith, of Hobart College, Geneva, New 



47 



York, and others, that, when the measures are taken in pyra- 
midal inches, they give certain results connected both with 
the exterior of the great pyramid and the physical phenomena 
of the earth and heavens, which are not attained when using 
any other unit of linear measure; for thus — 116*26 X tt (that 
invaluable number in modern mathematics as representing the 
proportion of diameter to circumference of a circle) = 365*24, 
the number of days in a year; also the number of pyramid 
cubits contained in the length of a side of the great pyramid. 
Again, taking 5 (one of the chief pyramid numbers), we find 
116 , 26X7rx5x5 = 9131 pyramid inches = length of a side of 
square base of pyramid deduced from all measures taken since 
the discovery of the corner sockets by the French Academi- 
cians — or, taking 50 (representing the number of courses of 
masonry between level of antechamber and base of pyramid), 
we find 116*26 X 50 = 581 3 = ancient vertical height of pyramid 
in pyramid inches, as deduced from mean of all measures. 
And finally that 103*033 x 50 = 5151-65 pyramid inches, or is 
the side of a square of equal area — first, to a triangle of the 
shape and size of the great pyramid's vertical meridian section ; 
second, to a circle having the height of the pyramid for a 
diameter. 

At the same time the standard bar, or granite leaf, in the 
antechamber — that feature which puzzled Professor Greaves 
so much in 1638, under which all who enter the king's chamber 
must bow their head — is found to contain the length of the 
whole sacred cubit, as well as its division into 5 parts, and 
again into 5 parts, which we call pyramid inches, the pyramid 
inch being equal to 1*001 British inches — recording thus in 
its lasting granite substance, peculiarly and emphatically,, the 
key to the whole system of pyramid metrology, reading which 
we find that the lower stone of the granite leaf is so placed 



48 



between the floor and ceiling as to mark out by its centre on a 
scale of 1 — 100, on the one side the 5813 inches of height, and 
on the other, 9131 inches of base-side length of the structure. 

In fact, this little antechamber is a veritable microcosm of 
scientific detail, though yet in subservience to, or as index of, 
what is contained in the grand king's chamber — truly grand — 
constructed in solid polished red granite, whereof the world 
has had the accurate length for the past 230 years, yet never, 
all through those years, dreamt that it contained the truths 
now being enunciated. 

These first began to appear to Mr. James Simpson when 
working out from the following approximate measures : — 

( Breadth = 206*10 
Linear < Height = 230*42 

( Length = 412 20 
( End = 309 14 
Diagonals of < Floor = 460 84 
( Side = 472-22 
Solid Diagonal - = 515'24 

by certain rather intricate eommensurabilities, which he calls 
the sums of the squares. For he found by taking half the 
breadth, or 103*05 as a special unit of division, to test and 
divide thereby the above quantities, and squaring the results, 
the following very remarkable and confirmatory outcome 
appears, in pyramid numbers of fives and tens, as shown 
below : — 

Breadth — 2,000, whose square - = 4 

Height —2,236, „'„-'= 5 
Length —4,000, „ „ - =16 

Or, sum of squares for linear dimensions =25 a pyramid 

number. 



49 



For the end diagonal — 3,000, whose square = 9 
Floor do. —4,472, „ „ =20 

Side do. —4,582, „ „ = 21 

Or, sum of squares for part diagonals - = 50 a pyramid 

number. 

Solid diagonal — 5,000, whose square =25 a pyramid 

number. 

And the sum of the three pyramid numbers = 100, being the 
number of blocks composing the walls of the chamber, as first 
recognised by Mr. Flinders Petrie. In a more fractionally 
advanced theoretical consideration of the size and proportions 
of the chamber (not yet published), Mr. Simpson alleges the 
exact measurements to be : — 

Breadth - - - = 206*0659 

Height = 230-3886 

Length = 412-1317 

Diagonal of end - - = 309*0988 

Do. floor - - = 460-7773 

Do. side - - = 472 1562 

Solid or cubic diagonal- - = 515*1646 
And grand division test of this chamber= 103 0329 

Now, taking the chamber's length (its chief line, and the 
best measured line in the whole pyramid) simply as measured, 
we find it practically = 412*132, and multiplying by the special 
pyramid numbers, 5 X 5, we find it to yield absolutely 10303 30, 
or the same row of cyphers, save one in the 7th place, with 
differently placed decimal point, which Mr. Simpson gives as 
test line of commensurability, chiefly from theory. 

Let us take Professor Smyth's interpretation of length = 
412-132 as the mean, taken from his numerous measures, 
which expresses — 1st, length of base-side of the whole pyramid 



50 



agreeably with the mean of all the direct measures thereof ; 
2nd, its vertical height; 3rd, its tt shape; 4th, the metrolo- 
gical combination of sacred cubits and earth-commensurable 
inches; and 5th, the absolute length of that sacred cubit 
ordained of God, in after-ages, to Moses and the Israelites. 
In illustration of the 1st proposition, Professor Smyth takes 
the 412*132 as representing cubits of 25 inches each; and 
considering that number as diameter of a circle, that circle is 
found to have an equal area with a square, each side of which 
measures 365*242, &c, sacred cubits; being equal to socket 
side of the great pyramid, as deduced from the mean of all 
the measures ; and also to the number of days, and parts of a 
day, in a mean solar tropical year. The 2nd proposition is 
tested by taking the same length of 412*132 as cubits in the side 
of a square, whose area is equal with that of a circle whose 
radius = 232*520 + &c, sacred cubits; as also being = the 
already concluded height of the pyramid. In proposition 3 
it is found that the diameter of a circle having 232*520 + &c, 
for radius : (is to) the periphery of a square whose side length 
— 365*242 + &C., of the same units: : 1 : 7r, the grand and 
leading pyramid proposition. 4th. The pyramid inches inside 
the king's chamber are found to tally with sacred cubits 
outside the pyramid to the 1,000th part of unity, not only 
in giving a coincidence in numbers, but in assigning a good 
scientific reason for them, demonstrating that both inch and 
cubit alike w r ere designed and used by the Architect of the 
Entire Structure. And finally, 5th, the absolute length of 
the sacred cubit of the great pyramid and Moses is deducible 
to the ten-thousandth of an inch from a direct measure of the 
king's chamber, on being simply computed according to the 
modern determination of the value of it and length of year, 
and comes out from the local measure of 412*545 British 



51 



inches to be 25*0250+ &c, British inches of the present 
day. 

The indications by measure and angle of the lower and 
primary chamber known as " The Queen's" are coming out 
more and more. Piazzi Smyth had already shown that the 
axis of the great niche in the eastern wall of the chamber is 
measured, from the centre, by just one sacred cubit in length, 
whose pyramidal division into 25 inches is symbolized by the 
chamber standing on the 25th corner of the whole structure; 
but since then Professor Hamilton L. Smith, of Hobart Col- 
lege, Geneva, New York, has succeeded in recognising still 
further scientific development, and has shown — 1st, the typical 
representation of the latitude of the great pyramid ; 2nd, the 
angles of the polar star of that day, as seen above the horizon 
at both upper and lower meridian transits; 3rd, that the 
height of the niche multiplied by ir and result by the pyramid 
number 10 = equal height of great pyramid ; or, 185 X tt X 1 0 
= 5812 (it is to be noted that 5813 should come out, but the 
measures of that chamber are comparatively rough ; hence 
fractional discrepancy may be looked for) ; 3rd, the height of 
north and south walls measured = 182*22 pyramid inches, 

and assumed 182*62, give (1 ) ^ * ^ =■= 9131= length of 

pyramid's base-side in p. in. ; (2) 182*62 X 2 = 365*24 = solar 
days in solar tropical year; with many other readings given 
in detail in 2nd edition of " Our Inheritance," from which the 
foregoing are taken. 

Mr. Waynman Dixon also has had the honour of making a 
discovery in this chamber which is mysteriously inexplicable, 
viz., the existence of two channels seemingly similar in design 
to the air channels of the king's chamber, but which were 
evidently not meant by the architect for ventilating purposes, 



52 



because they were hermetically sealed up by the inner or 
chamber-lining stone, giving no indication of their existence, 
until broken into by cold chisel and hammer, when it was 
found that they reached some 7 feet into the wall horizontally, 
then rose N. and S. at an angle of 32°, and likewise that they 
were cut through the chamber-lining block in its entire thick- 
ness, save the thin tympanum which was left to conceal their 
existence on the inner surface. The question, then, is — As 
they were not meant for ventilating channels, what was their 
use ? It strikes me that they were meant for acoustic pur- 
poses, as the slight covering slab would serve as the veritable 
tympanum of an ear that led — where? — possibly, probably, 
almost certainly, to another as yet undiscovered chamber — 
such as I had predicted the existence of on page 35, two 
years before Mr. Dixon's confirmatory discovery — an idea 
supported by the fact mentioned by Mr. Dixon, that although 
the smoke of a fire lighted in the southern passage went 
away, its exit was not discoverable on the outside of the 
pyramid. And when we reflect that a slight tap, given on 
the stone tympanum by a small metallic or other hard sub- 
stance, would be faithfully transmitted through the length of 
the channel to its exit — the conclusion seems reasonable that 
those passages had an acoustic use, and w T ere not meant for 
ventilating purposes. 

Again, the publication of " Philitis " resulted, inter alia, in 
numerous inquiries as to who Philitis was? — a question to 
which the following statement may be given as a satisfactory 
reply : — We find from Herodotus that Philitis was a Hyksos, 
or shepherd king, sojourning in Egypt in the reign of the 
fourth dynasty king Cheops. Manetho translates the term 
" Hyksos " as meaning, in the sacred language, " Hyk," a king ; 
" Sos," a shepherd; and goes on to describe those shepherd 



53 



kings as invaders who subdued the Egyptians without a 
battle — by some mysterious power which they possessed — 
and proceeds to recount " that eventually they quitted Egypt 
by capitulation, with all their families and effects, and pro- 
ceeded to Judea, numbering some 240,000 souls, where they 
built a city sufficient to contain this multitude, and called it 
Jerusalem " {vide " Corry's Fragments/' p. 173). Now, taking 
Philitis as the leader of that exodus, and keeping dates in 
view, we find that the then King of Jerusalem was a very 
peculiar person, a king without written ancestral pedigree, of 
whom no death-record was preserved — and who was high 
priest as well as king — he to whom Abraham paid tithes, the 
Melchizedek of Scripture; hence the inference approaches 
certainty that JPhilitis and Melchizedek were the same person. 

But, as this question is now being debated with zeal, it is 
as well to say, that although it be interesting in a high degree 
to find that Philitis and Melchizedek are synonymous, yet, as 
far as the pyramid question is concerned, the matter has no 
vital importance, for this "Pentateuch of stone" stands self- 
asserting, without regard or support from the name of its 
architect, as a testimony to our time, that whoever the architect 
may have been who was so eminently inspired with a know- 
ledge infinitely transcending that of his and succeeding 
generations of man, the work of that architect remains 
eloquent and immovable, the but partially solved problem of 
our age, a pole star of science research — a historic and 
prophetic record — a testimony to exact truths, accumulating 
by research — propounding a thesis which, like the visioned 
ladder of the Hebrew, though resting on the earth, reacheth 
to the heavens, on which divine truths, angel-like, may be 
seen to ascend and descend, even as in the dream of the 
sleeping Jacob. 



54 



PART III.— 1875. 

A Review of " Our Inheritance in the Great 
Pyramid." By Piazzi Smyth, F.R.S.E., F.R.A.S., 
Astronomer Royal for Scotland. New and Enlarged 
Edition. 526 pp., 17 plates. W. Isbister & Co., 56, 
Ludgate Hill, London. 1874. 

In this, the latest work of the Scottish Astronomer Royal, 
the author has marshalled the argument in favour of the great 
pyramid's claim to a scientific and ethical meaning and use in 
as condensed a form as the nature of the question will admit ; 
presenting in the volume before us a summing-up and appli- 
cation of the extensive and laborious details given in his great 
three-volume book (" Life and Work at the Great Pyramid," 
published by Edmonston and Douglas, of Edinburgh, in 
1867, containing some 1,653 pages and 36 illustrative plates), 
together with the most recent structural discoveries, as well 
as the latest advances that have been made in mastering the 
more deeply-seated teaching of this primeval building's sym- 
bolism. 

When, some fifteen years since, the late John Taylor pub- 
lished what seemed to be a speculative theory respecting the 
great pyramid, his book was looked upon generally as a literary 
curiosity, rather than an exposition capable of withstanding 
scientific test; but amongst the readers who gave a serious 
consideration to his theory, there was one (the author of the 
volume under review) whom it impressed so strongly, that he 
took it up practically and found it possible to advance it from 
the position of an inchoate thesis to that of a demonstrable 
scientific fact, which has now won a world-wide reputation, 
and is daily compelling acceptance from qualified and unpre- 
judiced thinkers and scientists in both Europe and America. 



55 



As might have been imagined, the appearance of " Life 
and Work at the Great Pyramid" caused a violent commo- 
tion amongst Egyptologists, hieroglyphists, and all those 
who held by the idea that the Great Pyramid was but a 
larger copy of the lesser mausoleums which stretch along 
the western bank of the Nile; and hence a wasp-cloud of 
impulsive, incompetent, and irascible persons swarmed, with 
buzz and sting, around the devoted head of the man who had 
dared to examine the grounds of their views and beliefs. 
But the standard had passed into worthy hands, and, leading 
a cohort of stern and doughty followers, the new Pyramidists 
put to utter rout the legion of turbulent and positive auto- 
cratic asserters of a mere tombic design of the great pyramid. 

And here it may not be amiss to consider for a moment 
the qualifications and character of the man with whom the 
demonstration of this unique pyramid's sacred and scientific 
character is especially connected. Qualified by his profession 
as astronomer for patient and rigorously exact observation, 
sustained and abstract thought, the duties of his daily life 
making him familiar not only with the mensuration of our 
little globe, but that of our sun system, and even that system 
around whose centre in the infinite depths of stellar space our 
sun circles as a planet, he brought to the test and considera- 
tion of the pyramid measures the trained and vigorous skill 
of a specialist ; and accordingly, when, in 18fi5, he went to 
Egypt, accompanied by his heroic wife, and having spent four 
months at the pyramid (living in an empty tomb), working 
indefatigably at his mensurations, and perfecting the most 
thorough, exact, and exhaustive set of measurements ever 
applied to any building in any age, he returned with a body 
of digested results which have withstood every attempt to 
question their accuracy. Then, as to the mental character of 



56 



the man, his book would show that, while he is not one to 
lightly adopt a fanciful scientific theory, he is still not of that 
timid class to be sneered down, pooh-poohed, or dogmatically 
bullied out of his convictions. In style, terse, vigorous, and 
graphic, he conveys 1 his ideas to the reader impressively, 
while pervading his conclusions there is a deeply devout 
spirit which adds solemnity to the work. 

Receiving the Bible as the inspired Word of God, and 
consequently being a Christian by conviction, he differs from 
many of our present unhappy so-called philosophers, who 
seem to think it necessary to the character of a learned and 
advanced thinker (as the phrase is) to deny the inspiration of 
the Scriptures, and to deify a knowledge of which it may 
be said that its highest reach is doubt, its ultimate results 
negation. 

Having thus alluded to the man, let us now turn to the 
work done by him ; and, primarily, it must be reflected on 
that no person, of however active an imagination, can have 
any approximately true idea of the labour and difficulties of 
the accomplished measurements from merely reading the 
account given. But only those who have seen and explored 
the pyramid — as the writer of these lines did in 1860 — who 
have looked up at, and been awed by, that mountainous mass 
of five million tons of great hewn stones, looming up to a 
present height of four hundred and fifty feet — who have 
clambered up its perilous slope, and stood in solemn silence 
on its giddy apex, then have walked round its vast base area 
of thirteen acres, and next slid down its descending, and 
laboriously toiled up its ascending, passages, in a thick dark- 
ness, which the lamp but served to render visible, oppressed 
by the confined air, high temperature, and dust — only such, 
with an experience like the foregoing, can have any true idea 



57 



of the labour expended in achieving measurements such as 
those taken by Piazzi Smyth — a work more thorough and 
perfect than that performed by the corps of French Aca- 
demicians in 1798, supported by a Government Commission; 
while this one man, out of his own private means, with a 
dogged resolution, sustained by a power of physical endurance 
possessed by few, prosecuted the work to completion with an 
unswerving tenacity which makes us pause to ask — What 
was the motive which could have impelled to this sacrifice of 
time, health, and money ? And when we find that the motive 
was simply and solely the desire and resolve to verify a 
scientific truth, it is not too much to say that history records 
few instances of more heroic and honour-worthy zeal than that 
exhibited by the author of the volume under consideration. 

And although " Life and Work at the Great Pyramid " 
evoked numerous illustrations of envy, hatred, malice, and 
much uncharitableness from vain, flippant, and unqualified 
writers, the author being scoffed at, traduced, worried, and all 
but argued with, by opponents who only succeeded in proving 
their egotistic inefficiency to apprehend the truth — still, even 
as the pyramid itself stands massive and immovable above the 
sand-drift of the desert, so now stands, solid and irrefutable, 
the scientific thesis of its character, uninfluenced by the 
clouds of witlings which the wind of vanity has strewn 
around its base. 

But, next, let us see what that thesis is, and consider the 
proofs advanced in its demonstration. 

(1.) As to the structure itself. It is duly oriented, and 
stands the largest and highest stone building ever raised by 
the hands of man. Its proportions have a peculiar meaning 
in the higher mathematics — its height, when perfect, bearing 
the relation to twice its base-side length which the diameter 



58 



bears to the circumference of a circle, and the area of its ri^ht 
section being to the area of its base as 1 to 3-14159, &c, or 
the mathematical function usually termed it. 

(2.) In geographical position it stands on a meridian in 
which there is more earth and less sea than any other — which 
rule holds equally good as to its latitude (the parallel of 30° 
embracing more land-surface than any other) — and occupies 
that point on the earth, north and south, east and west, of 
which there is an equal distribution of terrestrial land-surface 
(see " Equal Surface Projection ;" Edmonston and Douglas, 
Edinburgh, 1870). 

(3.) A unit and standard of length measure are rigidly 
set forth by the Pyramid, the former an inch (to- which the 
present British inch approximates by the y^^th part), the 
latter a cubit of 25 pyramid inches, = to the " sacred cubit " 
of the Hebrew nation, and differing from all other, or profane, 
cubits of ancient days. 

(4.) The length of one side of its base, divided by such 
cubit, gives the number of the earth's rotations, and fractional 
parts thereof, on its axis during the solar tropical year. 

(5.) The height of the pyramid, raised to the 10 9 , gives the 
sun-distance as — 91,837,497 miles, corresponding with 8*90 
seconds of parallax. 

(6.) Its four faces incline to the central axis at equal angles 
of 51° 51' 14-3". 

(7.) The initial unit of measure (inch) is the 500,000,000th 
of the earth's polar axis, and the cubit, consequently, 
10,000,000th (ten-millionth) of the polar semi-axis. 

(8.) The sum of the diagonals of base gives the number 
of years contained in equinoctial precession as = 25,827, a 
discovery hitherto attributed to the much later Hipparchus. 
Yet, 2,000 years before the thought had been grasped by the 



59 



Greek, the architect of the great pyramid had built in the fact 
on the diagonals of its base. 

Passing now from the cited leading features of the pyramid — 
which some may say are merely interesting, remarkable, or 
curious, even if true, as illustrating the possession of a height 
and range of knowledge in a remote age superior to, and 
surprising when compared with, the scientific requirements 
of the present — we pass to another and thoroughly practical 
standard, contained in the central chamber of the Pyramid — 
variously called " The Coffer," " Sarcophagus," " Empty 
Box," " Lidless Stone Chest," by Western writers — but 
designated more correctly and traditionally by Hekekyan Bey. 
C.E., of Constantinople, in a volume published in 1863, as 
" The King's Stone" deposited by the Arions in the Sanctuary 
of the first Pyramid, as a record of their standard 
metric measure, from which passage the reader will observe 
that the Western tombic theory is completely ignored by 
Oriental tradition and belief, which holds the pyramid itself 
to be a religious monument, in whose Sanctuary is deposited a 
standard of metric measure. 

The utterly futile force of the tombic theory as an argument 
affecting the record of the vessel in question will be considered 
further on ; and we now pass to a brief consideration of its 
metric features, as demonstrated by Piazzi Smyth. 

(1.) In this syenitic granite standard (in form, an oblong 
rectilinear hollow) the outside is equal to double the cubic 
contents of the inside, and its sides to double the contents of 
the bottom. (2.) Its cubic contents are 71,250 cubic pyramid 
inches, being the exact capacity of the Mosaic Sacred Ark of 
the Covenant, and four times that of the present British 
" Quarter." The complete scale from the " drop " or " mini- 
mum," to the " coffer," or "ton," with its admirable commen- 



60 



surability, must be referred to by the reader in the original 
volume, being too extended to introduce into a notice like the 
present. The same may be said of the " Coffer's Weight," 
" Earth Density," and " Mean Temperature" record, as also 
of the metric features of the lower, or "Queen's" chamber, 
which are being slowly but remarkably translated in their 
wonderfully consonant details, notably by Professor Hamilton 
L. Smith, of Hobart College, New York, and Mr. James 
Simpson, of Edinburgh, whose paper, given (IV.) in the 
Appendices to the volume before us, is a luminous illustration 
of the richness in design of both this and the more important 
" King's" chamber, as well as the high qualifications of the 
translator. 

A contribution to the July number of Life from the Dead, 
by Professor Smyth, renders superfluous a more technical 
disquisition on the exhaustive proofs abundantly supplied in 
support of the leading cosmic truths already alluded to. 
But a reference to the work under consideration is necessary 
for obtaining a full understanding of the teaching of the great 
pyramid architect, as far as it has been unveiled up to the 
present day. There are, however, features other than cosmic 
and physical exhibited in the pyramid of an unmistakably 
prophetic character, which raises this monument, or "Pillar 
of witness," into the plane of a prophetic revelation in stone, 
anterior to all written prophecy. But a revelation which, 
when built into this monument, would seem to have been 
meant for our generation, as it was sealed up until the fulness 
of the time had come when, and when only, the veil of fable 
and misbelief should, and could, be drawn aside — and its 
glorious testimonies, luminous and infallible, exhibited — to 
rebuke the vanity of a knowledge-worshipping age, by show- 
ing that, even in cosmic truth, the highest reach of the most 



61 



advanced modern science has failed to grasp the everlasting 
truths plainly and potently expressed, built in and bound 
down immovably, before the beginning of human intellectual 
history, under a mountain, as it were, of stone, by the inspired 
architect of the great pyramid. 

To those who believe in the divinely-inspired character of 
the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, it will be refreshing to 
know that here, in this pillar of witness, seven hundred years 
before Moses Avrote the Pentateuch, did Philitis, or Melchi- 
zedek, record, not in written characters that might or could 
be defaced or mistranslated, but in metric characters, fixed 
and unchangeable as the earth's axis, the three notable dis- 
pensations of our race — viz., that from the dispersion at 
Babel to Moses, the Hebrew dispensation, and the Christian 
dispensation, foretelling to a year the date of the birth of the 
Messiah. 



62 



PAET IV. 

Review — continued. 

[Second Notice.] 

In a former paper some of the leading cosmic, metric, and 
ethical features of the great pyramid, as exhibited by its 
divinely-guided architect, have been set forth or alluded to ; 
but to those who desire to be fully acquainted with the 
wonderful results of modern investigation, of the theory first 
propounded by the late John Taylor, a reference to the 
volume above noted is essential, in which the author not only 
gives an application and summing-up of the matter of his first 
and greater work, but also incorporates the contributions 
which other writers have made to the subject since 1868, in 
which year the argument of the pyramid may be said to have 
first taken definite and tangible shape in " Life and Work," 
securing at once that attention of the thinking world which 
John Taylor's volume had failed to do — it containing, as it 
were, but the outlines of a theory, while Piazzi Smyth's work 
at once elaborated, filled in, and demonstrated the thesis. 

That work called into the field the able assistance of 
William Petrie; St. John Vincent Day (see his magnifi- 
cent work, " Plates and Notes relating to some Special 
Features in Structures called Pyramids." Edmonston & 
Douglas, Edinburgh, 1869); Rev. Joseph T. Goodsir; 
Major Tracey, R.A. ; James Simpson; W. Flinders Petrie; 
Henry Mitchell, U.S.; Rev. Alexander Mackay, LL.D. ; 
Rev. F. R. Glover; Hamilton L. Smith, U.S.; the Abbe 
Moigno, Chanoine de St. Denis, Paris; Waynman Dixon, 
C.E. ; W. J. Cockburn Muir; and other qualified writers, 
whose confirmations and discoveries are given in the volume 
which is being commented on, of the fulness of which no 



63 



better proof can be advanced than a quotation of its index, 
viz.: — "(Chapter — 1) Introductory Statement Touching the 
Great Pyramid. (2) Geometrical Proportions. (3) Standard 
of Length employed in Great Pyramid. (4) Figure of the 
Earth and Sun Distance. (5) Geographical Indications of the 
Great Pyramid. (6) Structural Isolation of the Great Pyra- 
mid amongst the Pyramids. (7) The Pyramid Coffer. (8) Why 
of that size? (9) Density and Temperature. (10) Confirma- 
tions by the New School. (11) British Metrology, Past and 
Present. (12) Pyramid Capacity Measure. (13) Pyramid 
Weight Measure. (14) Linear and Superficial Measure. 
(15) Heat and Pressure, Angle, Money, Time. (16) The 
Sacred Cubit of the Hebrews. (17) Time Measures in the 
Great Pyramid. (18) Moses and the Wisdom of the Egyp- 
tians. (19) Mechanical Data. (20) Sacred and Prophetic 
Time. (21) Hierologists and Chronologists. (22) The Shep- 
herd Kings, (23) Superior Testimony. (24) Preparations for 
Universal Metrology. (25) General Summation, Secular and 
Sacred. (Appendix — 1) Mr. Waynman Dixon's Casing Stone. 
(2) Dr. Grant's Crucial Pyramid Investigations. (3) Dr. 
Leider's supposed Pyramid. (4) Mr. James Simpson's further 
Pyramid Calculations. (5) Rude Stone Monuments versus the 
Great Pyramid. (6) Recent attempts to Shorten both the 
Great Pyramid's base-side and the profane cubit of Egypt." 

The work proper of Piazzi Smyth has singularly shaped 
itself as to "parts" and "chapters" into the prevailing pyramid 
numbers, being composed of five parts and twenty-five chapters, 
thereby preserving the unities, as it were, even in the disserta- 
tion, and in this connexion it may be advanced that, as to the 
existence of other chambers in the pyramid than those already 
discovered, two more may perhaps be theoretically predicated 
as existing relatively in the planes of the 75th and 100th 



64 



courses of the pyramid masonry; the primary, or queen's 
chamber, being on a level of 25th course; the second, or 
king's chamber and antechamber, on the 50th course; and, 
as five is one of the ruling numbers in the structure, it would 
seem but consonant with its features to look for two other 
chambers in its mass, rising possibly in richness of revelation 
as they do in vertical position. 

Referring back to the concluding assertion in the former 
paper of this review — viz., "That the birth of the Messiah is 
foreshown by the pyramid measures," the details of the dis- 
covery of this the most important and astounding of the pyra- 
mid revelations (which it was the privilege of the writer to have 
led up to), and the demonstration of its accuracy, must be 
referred to in the original volume, where the history of the 
circumstances which led up to the discovery and interpretation 
of the Messianic sign (which for four thousand years had been 
visible, yet unseen) is fully given, as well as the copious tabu- 
lated demonstration of the hypothesis. Surely this is a fact 
most worthy of the deepest attention of those men who hold 
themselves to be the lights of our age. For it is either true 
or false; if the former, it is infinitely more important than 
theories respecting " Force," "Atomic attraction," " Protoplasm 
development," &c, &c. ; and if it be false, let it be refuted. 
It is not hedged about by philological or debatable ground of 
argument, but stands on, and by, line, angle, and measure, in 
its plea for acceptance ; or, to use the words of the Rev. F. R. 
A. Glover, M.A., " pure science readable without bias by all 
mankind." And surely it is eminently worthy the most serious 
attention of Christian teachers who are zealous for testimony 
corroborative of Holy Writ, not mutilated fragmentary record- 
writing on pieces of pottery, but clear indubitable prophecy, 
spoken in a language understandable by men of every tongue. 



65 



Until within the last sixteen years the prevalent opinion 
amongst Western travellers who had visited the great pyramid 
was, that in common with the other structures resembling it 
rudely in form, it was merely the largest mausoleum in the line 
of pyramids, stretching along the valley of the Nile, an idea 
largely defensible from the fact that all the other and later 
pyramids were unquestionably meant and built for sepulchral 
purposes. But respecting the original great pyramid, it may 
be worth while to quote the traditional opinion of oriental 
writers on the subject, however much such opinion is marred 
by the element of redundant imagination. 

Thus we find Abou Ma'sher JaTer Ben Mohammed Balkhi, 
who died 884, a.d., writing: — " The wise men previous to the 
flood, foreseeing an impending judgment from Heaven which 
would destroy every created being, built upon the tops of the 
mountains and in Upper Egypt many pyramids of stone, in 
order to have some refuge against the approaching calamity. 
Two of these buildings exceeded the rest in height. Upon 
the exterior of the building every charm and wonder of physic 
was inscribed in the Mossannad character, and likewise this 
declaration, ' I have built them, and whoever considers himself 
powerful may try to destroy them : let him, however, reflect 
that to destroy is easier than to build.' " In this extract it will 
be seen that under the error of supposing an antediluvian origin, 
there lies the vital truth that the structure specially indicated 
arose from a religious faith, and fear in and of God. 

Again, Masoudi, 967, a.d., says " that Surid Ben-Shaluk 
Ben-Sermuni Ben-Sermidun Ben-Sedresun Ben-Sal, one of the 
antediluvian kings of Egypt, built two great pyramids (the 
great and second in Jeezeh group) ; and in the eastern, or great 
pyramid, were inscribed the heavenly spheres, and figures re- 
presenting the stars and planets in the form in which they were 

E 



66 



worshipped. The king also deposited the instruments and the 
thuribula with which his forefathers had sacrificed to the stars, 
and also their writings, likewise the positions of the stars and 
their circles, together with the history and chronicles of times 
past, and of that which is to come, and every future event 
which would take place in Egypt. 1 ' This writer, it will be seen, 
even although the tradition is overlaid with astrological belief, 
still shows that the prophetic character of the monument had 
passed down to his time as a matter of traditional faith.* 

It is unnecessary to multiply Eastern authority for the sacred 
and scientific character of the pyramid as opposing and superior 
to the Western belief in the tombic theory, which, however, 
naturally arose and was confirmed by the erroneous conclusion 
that the use and character of the primary pyramid might be 
truly predicated from the unquestionably tombic pyramids of 
a later date. But it strikes the writer that Professor Smyth, 
and other Pyramidists, have wasted much valuable time in 
replying to and confuting the tombic theory, as, in point of fact, 
as far as radical argument goes touching the features claimed 
for the building, it would make no difference whatever if a 
massive mural tablet had been found set in the masonry of the 
exterior, a lid found on the coffer, a mummy of Cheops in it, 
&c, &c, as the fact would still remain, that the mausoleum 
(if you will) and sarcophagus (if so insisted) were designed by 
an architect who embodied in their construction all the primary 
truths claimed and verified, while still leaving them suited to 
secondary and inferior uses, just as the Royal Scytale of the 
Spartan kings, while essential to translating a decree on which 
hung the fate of nations, might serve or be used for any secon- 
dary purpose, even if such was of a no more aesthetic nature 

* See "Purpose and Primal Condition of the Great Pyramid of Jeezeh," by 
St. John Vincent Day. Bell and Bain, 41, Mitchell-street, Glasgow. 1868. 



67 



than stirring the cauldron of black broth for the public 
breakfast. 

Therefore, the real and only question is, Whether the great 
pyramid does or does not contain the metric features claimed 
for it ? If it does, there remains no doubt that the architect 
who embodied the truths exhibited must have been super- 
humanly inspired, as in the age in which he lived no such 
knowledge existed among men. If it does not contain those 
metric features, demonstrative refutation is within reach of line 
and rule, and the pyramid stands to be questioned of and reply 
for itself to all gainsay ers. To those who reply, " We admit 
the measures, but we deny the conclusions drawn from them," 
the answer is — That if the measures (as in the instance of the 
base-side length giving the length of the solar tropical year) 
exhibited but one instance of preconceived design, it might 
be said that such coincidence was accidental ; but when a 
concatenated chain of design is shown of the highest order of 
scientific knowledge, the denial of such design in the mind of 
the architect is of that class which refutes itself by the 
absurdity of its assertion. 

In laying down the volume, any dispassionate reader who 
has paid due attention to the argument advanced must be 
impressed with the conviction that, in this our day and 
generation, no more important question or discovery has arisen 
or been made than the character and revelation of the Sethic 
Monument, or Great Pyramid, in, but not of, Egypt. 



CHAKLES CASEY. 



APPENDIX. 



I here subjoin a letter from the Rev. F. R. A. Glover, M.A., 
when on his way to India, written to the Astronomer Royal 
of Edinburgh — not meant for publication — but which is 
interesting, even in its off-hand style ^ as showing the critical 
accuracy of the measurements made in the " granite leaf" key 
to Pyramidic metrology, as well as the verification of the 
" Messianic lines" in the first descending passage, which were 
in the summer of 1872 theoretically asserted by me to be 
absolutely essential to establishing the ethical character of the 
Pyramid. After some five weeks' close work on outside lines — 
face, aris, angles, base, diagonals, vertical lines, &c, tested by 
all and each of the true Pyramid numbers — I failed to find 
the sought-for mark, and reported my idea and the failure of 
verification, to Professor Smyth. With his characteristic 
courtesy, he looked into the merits of the thesis, and said, 
" You must search within the structure for this class of truth," 
and furnished me with Mr. Menzie's theory — acting on which 
as a pivot, I began to work afresh with renewed hope, the 
result being a predication of the existence of the looked-for 
sign at a certain indicated point in the first descending 
passage. Having transmitted the opinion, and the reasons on 
which it was based, to Professor Smyth, I awaited his reply — 
the delay in receiving which led me to suppose that he had 
set the matter aside and forgotten it. But no, instead of this I 
found he had duly noted the existence of the mysterious lines 
in his already published book, showing thereby the laboriously 



70 



minute character of his observation, as they had hitherto 
escaped the notice of Pyramidal explorers through preceding 
time ; however, as they were but verbally described there, 
and not instrumentally measured, he sent to Cairo for solution, 
without saying what was intended, to be connected with any 
numerical results that might come out. Then came the 
astounding reply, giving the undeniable figures testified to by 
Dr. Grant, of Cairo, as well as Mr. Waynman Dixon, as now 
again by the Rev. Mr. Glover — that the thin fine line? 
evidently the work of a master hand, on either side of the 
passage, and the existence of which had escaped the observa- 
tion in any way of all and every writer on the Pyramid, until 
noticed by Piazzi Smyth in 1864, gave the very date, 2,170, 
within a small fraction of an inch. The irrefutable and 
exhaustive demonstration by which Professor Smyth estab- 
lished the discovery of coincidence is to be found in pages 
395 to 401 in the second edition of his work, " Our Inheritance 
in the Great Pyramid," where it stands solid and immovable 
as the Pyramid itself, of whose manifold revealed truths it is 
the chiefest. 

Rev. F. R. A. Glovee's Letter. 

" Cairo, 12th November, 1874. 

u Your letters reached me here four days after my arrival. 
I have been somewhat unwell, the result of a forty mile drive 
to the Holy City from Jaffa, which occupied from sundown to 
sunrise. The journey was performed in a so-called spring 
waggon — a hideous illusion — for the road, though well laid 
out, seems to have been left in the most complete state of 
artificial unusableness as regards any approach to comfort, 
combined with which, the uneatable food, the riding all sorts 
of horses at all sorts of paces, and finishing with the same 



71 



distance back again to Jaffa, on a galloping horse that wouldn't 
canter, and couldn't trot — and then unstable winds, adversely 
helped by sea-swell between Jaffa and Alexandria — produced 
an uneasy and long-abiding qualmishness, which obliged me 
to seek the assistance of Dr. Grant on my arrival here. I 
feel, however, so far recovered as to visit the Great Pyramid. 

. . . (Later) — I have been to that vast structure in 
company with a party consisting, among others, of a young 
Mr. Steele, ship-owner, of Liverpool, who is making a tour 
round the world, a young Mr. Beecher, cousin of Sir Wrixon 
Beecher, of the county of Cork, Ireland, and a Mr. Grafton, 
merchant, of Alexandria. I must now bear testimony, result- 
ing from experiment, by saying that I find the cast of the boss 
to be most fairly confirmatory of the entire of the sacred cubit 
and its divisions, giving, as it unequivocally does, the inch 
elevation and the five-inch span, with an inch base for the side 
slope, and, I think, 1^-inch base for the upper slope. All this 
came out most clearly when the model was submitted to test 
under my small instrument, for it happens that the circular 
disc which carries the graduations of degrees is just one inch 
in radius ; so, that, when the sector is opened, and its inner 
edge laid along the horse-shoe span, the (then) lower edge of 
the disc just all but impinges on the bottom edge of the slope ; 
and, as the whole width is seven inches at bottom, taking off 
the inch base at either side, leaves the exact five inches plane 
on the top, and with whatever irregularity of level — if any 
there be — as regards the alignment of the lower line of the 
boss. On the boss itself there is no indication whatever of 
any irregularity of shape. I am, therefore, led to conclude 
that speculations on such assumed irregularity are simply 
speculations on supposed existences, having no foundation in 
fact. 



72 



" I have been asked more than once, ' Why are we to place 
more reliance on Professor Smyth's account than on any one 
else's ? ' or 4 Why should we reject everybody else's measures, 
and receive his as correct ? ' — to which queries I have replied 
by citing the case of some half-dozen authorities asserting that 
the walls of the ' King's Chamber ' consisted of six layers, and 
others asserting the walls to be composed of vertical columns 
instead of horizontal layers. So when our party reached the 
King's Chamber I was there able to demonstrate to them the 
superior value of one good and true witness, compared with a 
multitude of incompetent narrators, and thus establish your 
claim to reception as the most correct and laborious of Pyramid 
measurers, whose account and figures remain unshaken, 
rejected only by those who have not tested them, or that 
class of modern, superficial visitors, who merely wish ,/to 
have it to say that they have ' done ' the Pyramids — who, 
going into the Pyramid to see nothing, are most successful ; 
and then, having seen nothing, and feeling their unqualified 
incapacity to grasp the subject, declare oracularly that ' It is 
all bosh ! ' and, even worse than that, repeat flippantly the 
shallow mistakes of others, by which, among congenial minds, 
they become lions of great eminence, but of very, very low 
degree. 

" In the lecture which I gave at Jerusalem — the Bishop 
presiding — I had the satisfaction of illustrating the absolute 
accuracy of your adopted measure of the base-side length of 
the Pyramid — which had been questioned by Mr. Buldock, 
M.P. — I trust to the conviction of that gentleman, as well as 
the Bishop and a most attentive audience. And at the 
Pyramid, one of our party having quoted the opinion expressed 
at Winchester by Sir Nelson Pycroft, ' that the story about 
the Messianic lines was all bosh ! ' I took care to let the party 



78 



have ocular demonstration of their existence, and thus see the 
folly of the assertion expressed by the Honourable Baronet, 
in declaring that ' the lines were not there, whatever Professor 
Smyth or anybody else had said.'' When I had shown the 
young gentlemen above-named that the lines were there, I said 
to them — ' Now you see that, however difficult it may be to 
distinguish them, by superficial observers, the lines are there, 
and I shall ask you to confess now and at all other times that 
you have seen them.' To. this they gladly consented; and so 
this story and this verification of the reality of the lines will be 
repeated as often as I shall be called upon to speak of the 
matter, if only * pour encourager les autr.es ^ such as the Hon- 
ourable Baronet, ' et hoe genus omne.' 

" But oh ! what a wreck within, no less than without, is 
that great and glorious pile of merciful interpretation, designed 
to bring home to the mind and conception of man the presence 
of special Providence in his behalf of the great here-manifested 
Almighty ! 

"What Jerusalem and. its surroundings exhibit ('the 
Glory of the Earth ' become desolation, devastation, defile- 
ment) obtains equally at this ' holy mount,' once all-glorious 
within, without spot or blemish on its radiant golden-sunned 
surface, but now a ruin, almost a wreck— existing apparently 
but to be subject to the insult of being supposed to be an 
erection meant to glorify the contemptible idolatries of a king 
and people who could find the god of their worship in four- 
footed beasts, reptiles, and vermin. Let us suppose that the 
time shall come when its glory shall be vindicated by restora- 
tion. For if the Holy City is to be restored, shall not the 
mount, if it was the mount ? — and if not this — to which was 
Moses referred for pattern and reality of number, weight, and 
measure — what ? For is not the Pyramid essentially and 



74 



eminently the teacher of measure, weight, and number ? — 
the emblem, in its perfections, of the truth and equity of the 
Godhead. Will it, then, be permitted that the monument 
erected to exhibit and declare the attributes of God to the 
universe shall be left to dwindle, by wasting influence of the 
elements, into nonentity ? Is that monument which bears 
God's mark on the earth, mechanically set up and brought to 
our perception by irrefragable proof, to be allowed to disappear ? 
No, my good man, don't believe it ; you and I may not live 
to see its restoration ; but what if we did ? Yet it is no more 
impossible to restore than it was to build it — undoubtedly a 
great deal less so. It wants but the will — money follows — 
and all the Lord's people will be willing in the day of His 
power, when once again shall be raised the words — ' Grace, 
grace unto it ! ' ' Grace to that which was begun, set up, and 
finished, before Abraham ivas, to the glory of the Eternal,' as 
I Am's self had said ; and shall we to whom grace has been 
vouchsafed as chosen to bear witness of the great work, shall 
we think that the ' Galilean ' has spoken in vain ? Yerily 
not. 

" Concerning the interior devastation of the grand thing, I 
must say that now, having seen its apparently almost irreco- 
verable condition, I am impressed with a great admiration of 
those who laboured, almost against possibility in measuring, in 
such a hopeless place of work, and yet who so wonderfully 
succeeded in producing that fair and intelligible representation 
of the ruin exhibited by the measurements and drawings of 
C. Piazzi Smyth, aided by his incomparable wife. 

" Never mind, then, good people. Let the Devil's agents 
howl their curses along with their master ! ' The Lord will 
have them in derision.' That little line, true to *7 of an inch 
will laugh them to scorn — that thing, which has length ivithout 



75 



breadth or thickness, is, as it were, the rod of iron of the 
great Shepherd King, that will break in pieces all that oppose. 
Nor is the time distant, for doubtless the day of redemption 
draweth nigh ! 

" And indeed the Pyramid itself, by the rapidity of its 
decay, seems to require or indicate that the time should not 
be long. The ante-chamber is being more and more wrecked, 
and the white stone of the floor fast disappearing. Dr. Grant 
tells me that Mr. Waynman Dixon has taken the distance from 
socket to socket by the theodolite, and worked it out by 
trigonometry ; but as, I regret to learn, he will not return 
here for three months, his figures are not accessible. I must 
confess to being anxious to realise the measure of 761-68 feet 
myself; and, having with me the makings of a 50-foot brass 
measuring rod, whose length will greatly reduce the diffi- 
culty — or, at least shorten the process — I shall try and per- 
suade Dr. Grant to go out with me on Monday next and test 
the measure. 

" Your observations on the present state of the so-called 
Christian mind are terrifically true, and a letter received from 
Germany records, I regret to say, the same opinion in just so 
many words — too confirmatory, alas ! of the need of that 
being done which I have been proposing for India." 



76 



THE QUEEN'S CHAMBEB. 

The readings of this chamber are alluded to by Professor 
Piazzi Smyth thus — in his contribution to No. 11 of Mr. 
Hines' serial, Life from the Dead — " Deep in the almost solid 
interior of the Great Pyramid, in its white-stoned, seven-sided 
chamber, called in modern times ' The Queen's Chamber,' 
there is a metrical reference, not only to a cycle of seven days, 
but to six ordinary days succeeded by a seventh of more 
elevated character ; making altogether a sufficiently recog- 
nizable symbol of the true Biblical week, a period of time 
peculiar in construction to the earliest Divine command to 
men contained in the Scriptures ; and which was in its origin 
equally binding on all mankind, though in subsequent ages 
made more especially obligatory on the Hebrew people alone ;" 
and in " Our Inheritance," page 360, et seq., the following 
features are given : — 

(1.) The central axis of niche in east wall is removed one 
sacred cubit's length southward. 

(2 ) The top of niche is somewhat less than a cubit in 
breadth. 

(3.) The height of niche multiplied by 7r, and that by 
pyramid number 10 — the height of the Great 
Pyramid ; or 185- X tt X 10 = 5,812. 

(4.) The height of niche, less height, of its inner species 
of long shelf, equals half of base-side length of 
pyramid, or 185 = 39*6 X 10 it = 4,568 inches. 



77 



(5.) The height of the north and south walls measured = 
182*22 pyramid inches X 1 inch, and assumed 182*62, 
give 

(!) 182*62 X 1Q = 9,131 length of pyramid's 

base-side in p. inches. 
( 2 ) 182*62x2 = 365*24 = solar days in tropical 
year. 

(6.) The breadth of Queen's Chamber measured = 205*6, 
assumed 205*0, gives 182*62 : 205 : : 205 : 230-1 = 
height of King's Chamber from floor to ceiling. 

(7.) The square root of 10 times the height of north or 
south walls, divided by height of niche = ir ; or 

/182-62 X 10 
7T=x/ 185 

Professor Smyth accredits the discovery of theorems 3 to 7 
to Professor Hamilton Smith (of Hobart College, Geneva, 
New York), who sums up his study of that room in the two 
following propositions : — 

1st. Either there is proof in that chamber of supranatural 
inspiration granted to the architect ; or 

2nd. That primeval official possessed, without inspiration , 
in an age of absolute scientific ignorance, 4,000 years ago, 
scientific knowledge equal to, if not surpassing, that of the 
present highly developed state of science in the modern world. 

It remains for those who deny the claims put forward on 
behalf of the use and meaning of the Great Pyramid, to 
choose either horn of the dilemma, or else disprove the mathe- 
matical results on which the propositions are founded. 

From a number of suggestions which have been forwarded 



78 



to me, I subjoin that of a venerable Christian lady as being 
worthy of consideration : — 

" Shem — Philitis — Melchizedek In Patriarchal times the Head of 

the House was Priest of the Family, as we see Abraham was to his Tribe — 
hence, Shem, the father of the race in which Abraham was born, was 
High Priest (for them) to the Most High God. He lived for some thirty- 
four years after the death of Abraham (taking the marginal chronology 
of the Bible as record), and being Head, and Priest, must have been the 
Melchizedek to whom his son Abraham gave the tithes of all for God's 
service, and who administered to Abraham the sacramental bread and 
wine. 

" Can we, then, wonder that the builder of the Great Pyramid, Philitis, 
was acquainted with the scientific facts embodied in the structure ? as 
being inspired by the Most High God at the time of its erection. 

" The days of Shem's Priesthood did not begin at the 20th or end at 
the 50th year, as did those of Aaron and his sons, his Priesthood con- 
tinuing nearly half a century after the death of Abraham. 

"C. L. 

"Sept., 1875." 



I have decided on excluding from present edition the 
Metrical Disquisition attached to former editions — being 
urged to do so by the Bookseller's argument, that " Poetry is 
at a discount in the present age." But on mooting the 
question amongst a large circle of readers, I find that the 
great majority of opinion is in favour of the Octaves referring 
to the Great Pyramid being retained, and accordingly they 
are inserted. 



UNITS AND STANDARDS 

OF THE 

GREAT PYRAMID SYSTEM OF METROLOGY. 



(1.) — LINEAR MEASURE. 
The sacred cubit of both Noah, the ) _ { Length of Earth's semi-axis of rotation 



Great Pyramid, Moses and Solomon ) ~ \ divided by 10 7 
„ „ — 25' Pyramid inches. 

„ „ = 2 5 "02 5 British Imperial inches. 

= 23-481 Old French inches. 
Application to SQUARE MEASURE. 
A square of 1 00 sacred cubits in the side = One Pyramid acre. 

., „ = 0-999 of the British Imperial acre. 

„ „ = 0 957 of the old French "arpent commun." 

(2.)— WEIGHT AND CAPACITY MEASURE. 
One Pyramid pound weight = Weight of 5 cubic Pyramid inches of 

Earth's Mean density. 
„ ,, — 1*028 of the British pound avoirdupois. 

„ ,, = 1"050 of the old French pound, "orpoids 

de marc." 

I One Pyramid pound, or 5 X 5 '7 cubic Pyra- 

^ -n -j • . ) mid inches, of water, at temperature 50° 

One Pyramid pint measure = pyramid ( ' 6 g 0 ^ &nd £ arometrical 

f pressure =30* inches pyramid. 
,, „ = 0-987 of the old British wine pint. 

= 0-836 of the old French "chopine." 
(3.)— TEMPERATURE MEASURE. 
Freezing of water = 0° Pyramid scale of temperature. 

I from freezing to boiling = 50° Pyramid (68° Fah. 20 Cent). 

„ ,, = Mean temperature of all inhabited lands. 

,, = Most suitable temperature for the health 

of man. 

„ „ = General reference temperature for all 

Metrology. 

(1.) — ANGULAR MEASURE. 
The whole circle = 1000° Pyramid. 

Prime Meridian for Longitude ) ^ ,, . ... , ^ , ^ . , 
reckoning by aU nations | = The Meridia11 of the Great Pjramxd. 

(5.) — TIME MEASURE. 
Era for present reckoning begins with the Birth of Christ, in solar years. 
Shortest day period = The Biblical week, of six working days, followed by a day of 

rest devoted to nobler thoughts. 
Date of the memorialisation of this system in stone = 2170 B.C. 

Chronological dial, the Precessional circle of the Pole of rotation in the sky, whose 
whole cycle = 25,827 years. 

C. P. S. 

Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, 
5th October, 1872. 



80 



" THE EELIGION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID." 

In Frazers Magazine for March a contribution under the 
above heading has appeared from the pen of Richard A. 
Proctor, in which he has proved — to his own entire satisfac- 
tion — that a demonstrated concatenation of facts, in which 
the most unquestionable evidence of design is apparent and 
provable, is merely a series of accidental coincidences. The 
article in question is, in itself, a very curious illustration, 
however, of a design without any coincidence of proof to 
support it — the design being to subvert the theory of the 
Great Pyramid as a symbolic monument — the means used in 
support of his protest a lavish indulgence in elastic terms, 
such as "seems," and a putting forward, with serious uncon- 
cern, statements alleged to be facts, which are, in reality, 
pure fiction. 

As a magazine astronomical imaginist, Richard A. Proctor 
holds a foremost place — a writer whose contributions to the 
serials are prized by the fortunate editors who can secure 
them, and thus excite to the utmost, and satisfy to repletion, 
the appetite for the wonderful in the popular mind ; and we 
confess to the weakness of seizing with avidity — when want- 
ing relaxation from our work — any of R. A. P.'s articles 
that may be fortunately within reach. Then laying aside the 
clog of critical test — luxuriously credulous, indulging in an 
Arabian Night's receptivity of belief, delivering ourselves to 
the vigorous grasp of the Genie of astronomical romance — we 
enjoy the being whirled through the depths of space, lulled 
by stupendous speculations as to the stellar universe and the 
immensity of infinitude, launched through the immeasurable 
eeons, and sublimated by visions of the " wreck of matter 
and the crash of worlds." Yes; we confess a weakness for 



81 



the contributions of this gorgeous writer, who, when soaring 
through the infinite on pinions radiant with hues of imagina- 
tion, is as a veritable bird of paradise in the ether of litera- 
ture, and we always lay down his articles with the Dominie 
Sampson exclamation, " pro-di-gi-ous !" But on the present 
occasion, when — earth- ten ding — R. A. P. perches on the apex 
of the Great Pyramid, there is a sad change of plumage, and 
we find only a resemblance of that bird sacred to Athene, 
of which Yirgil has written — 

"Solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo, 
Ssepe queri et longas in fletum ducere voces." 

" Perched on the roof, the bird of night complains, 
In lengthened shrieks, and dire funereal strains." 

It is to be regretted that Mr. Proctor should have left his 
proper sphere and confronted a rigorous thesis without at least 
having thoroughly acquainted himself with the matter he 
discusses, the theory of the Great Pyramid being such that 
reckless temerity will not supply the place of argument, nor 
imagination prevail against mathematical demonstration. 

But as Mr. Proctor has decided on rushing upon this subject, 
there is nothing to be done but follow him, and see how far 
his argument goes. In the first place, then, let us take an 
instance from his opening paragraphs, in which he professes 
to enumerate the things believed in by the Pyramidists, by 
stating that they claim having discovered in the monument, 
among its standards, one of money. Now, it so happens that 
the very reverse of this statement is the truth, as may be seen 
in the following extract from Professor Piazzi Smyth's work 
(" Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid/' pp. 270, 271), 
the index of which Mr. Proctor may have read, but could not 
have read the book itself, else he would not, we are persuaded, 
have ventured to allege as above, the exact opposite of the 

F 



82 



truth. Professor Smyth writes thus: — "Wherefore many 
inquirers have demanded, ' What about money in the Pyramid ? ' 
I can only answer them, that I have not been able to find out 
anything about that subject in the Great Pyramid." The 
italics in the foregoing are sufficient to drive home and 
rivet Mr. Proctor's first false assertion, but more audacious 
inaccuracy follows (as might be expected) this initial error. 
Mr. Proctor, in discussing the geographical position of the 
Great Pyramid, is serenely imbued by the conviction that 
had a mind, gifted as his, been consulted by Philitis, that 
inspired architect would have had his symbolic monument 
raised one mile and one-third north of its present position, 
and would have had his socket angles more perfectly placed 
to secure due and perfect orientation of base line. Further, 
Mr. Proctor shows not only that Philitis used the stellar 
method for determining latitude, but also for ascertaining the 
meridian or north and south line ; and not only shows what 
should have been done, but boldly asserts that such was done. 
On page 336 Mr. Proctor writes : — " Prom the middle of the 
northern side of the intended base they would bore a slant 
passage, tending always from the position of the pole star at 
its lower meridianal passage — that star, at each successive 
return to that position, serving to direct their progress, while 
its small range east and west of the pole would enable them 
most accurately to determine the star's true mid-point below 
the pole — that is, the true north." Having thus shown what 
should have been done, Richard A. Proctor, on page 337, 
solemnly answers us in a triumphant manner as follows: — 
" Now, there is a slanting tunnel occupying precisely the 
position of the tunnel which should, according to this view, 
have been formed in order accurately to orient the Pyramid's 
base." Here, again, the italics which have been given are 



83 



alone sufficient to show the heroic disregard of accuracy 
which distinguishes Mr. Proctor's argument. 

It is quite true that there is a slant tunnel in the northern 
face of the Pyramid (the entrance passage), but it is quite 
untrue that that passage is in the middle or meridian plane 
of the base line, its position being some 300 inches east of 
meridian of Pyramid's northern base line, and not on it. 
However, Mr. Proctor may have been studying Al-Mamoon's 
theory of entrance, and may be consoled by knowing that he is 
quite as well informed as to its true position in this year of 
grace, 1877, as was that enterprising Kaliph who, in A.D. 
820, acted on Mr. Proctor's theory by tunnelling in at the 
middle of the northern side, beginning his work also some 250 
inches too low, and boring on in search of entrance passage 
vainly until, aided by an unexpected falling of a stone on one 
side of him, he at length broke sideways and with immense 
difficulty (because the wrong way) into the true passage, low 
down in its course. 

Before reaching his tunnel theory, Mr. Proctor, referring 
to three demonstrated facts, writes as follows (page 133): — 
" Still more fanciful are some other notes upon the Pyramid's 
geographical position — as (1) that there is more land along 
the meridian of the Pyramid than in any other all the world 
round; (2) that there is more land in the latitude of the 
Pyramid than in any other ; and (3) that the Pyramid territory 
of Lower Egypt is at the eentre of the dry land habitable 
by man all the world over." There is no attempt at test or 
denial of the facts stated, but there is a mode of reasoning 
adopted which is "still more fanciful" than the imaginative 
theory of the entrance passage, viz. : — " It might be regarded 
as not a mere accident that the Great Pyramid stands at the 
centre of the arc of shore-line along which lie the outlets of 



84 



the Nile; or it might be regarded as not a mere coincidence 
that the Great Pyramid stands at the central point of all the 
habitable land surface of the globe ; or, again, any one of the 
other relations above mentioned might be regarded as some- 
thing more than a mere coincidence. But if, instead of taking 
only one or other of these four relations, we take all four of 
them, or even any two of them, together, we must regard 
peculiarities of the earth's configuration as the result of 
special design, which certainly have not been so regarded by 
geographers." Now, the question is not whether geographers 
have hitherto believed that the configuration of the earth was 
without design, nor whether Mr. Proctor believes with those 
heretics who deny design in all or any of the Creator's works, 
but the question is, first, are the alleged facts in connexion 
with the geographical position of the Great Pyramid true ? 
and, second, if true, can their combination be rationally 
supposed to be fortuitous ? As to the first part of the question, 
its truth has been demonstrated already by Professor Smyth, 
and therefore needs no further allusion here ;* and as to the 
second part, no rational and unprejudiced man, possessing a 
limited knowledge of the mind-reach and power exhibited 
by the Pyramid's architect, can for a moment suppose it 
possible that, either in his choice of site or details of building, 
anything of chance or accident entered into a work wholly 
resulting from the most evident design. But the curious 
part of Mr. Proctor's line of argument is, that he considers 
" the very fact that the four conditions (above alluded to) can 
be fulfilled simultaneously, is evidence that a coincidence of 
the sort may result from mere accident." Well, it may be 

* See treatise on " An Equal Surface Projection for Maps of the World, and 
its application to certain Anthropological Questions." By C. Piazzi Smyth, 
E.R.SS. L. & E. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, Prince's-street. 1870. 



85 



evidence, but what sort of evidence? — perhaps that kind of 
evidence which Mr. Proctor is habitually satisfied with — but 
to reflective minds it is an evidence of the most conclusive 
kind in favour of design, and against accident; but with Mr. 
Proctor the extent of doubt seems to be in exact proportion 
to the amount of proof. 

Reflecting on the charge of scepticism which might be 
justly made against the denial of design, a note has been 
added, which reads as follows: — " Of course it may be argued 
that nothing in the world is the result of mere accident, and 
some may assert that even matters which are commonly 
regarded as entirely casual have been specially designed. It 
would not be easy to draw the precise line dividing events 
which all men would regard as, to all intents and purposes, 
accidental, from those which some men would regard as 
results of special Providence. But common sense draws a 
sufficient distinction, at least for our present purpose." 

It may be legitimately urged that when a writer denies 
design in the work of the Creator, whether in the minutest 
details or the entire sum, he is debarred from a locus standi 
as either a true philosopher or a religious man. If we adopt 
the theory of a modern French astronomer, and believe that 
u we have no need of the hypothesis of God," then indeed 
we can revel in the supposition or assertion of chance and 
accident ; but when a man believes that — 

"Behind creation and its myriad laws, 
God stands — the great originating cause," 

he is driven by the imperative force of reflection to an 
inflexible faith in their being no such thing as either chance 
or accident in the works of an omnipotent and all-wise 
Creator; and it is only when recusant to this, the true faith, 
that the plea of expediency in the use of such a term as 



86 



" common sense," can be had recourse to. We know that 
this term, '' common sense," when it means anything, means 
understanding, unaided by a knowledge of the rules of reason- 
ing, and therefore a most unsafe authority on matters requir- 
ing the exercise of an educated mind. Mr. Proctor knows 
this well enough — knows that when common sense tells him 
" that the earth is stationary, and not holding a revolving 
flight through space with enormous velocity — that the sun, 
moon, and stars revolve round the earth, &c, &c, he at once 
rejects the opinion of common sense as being synonymous 
with error. But here — when a question arises much more 
elevated than the astronomical illustration — Mr. Proctor 
thinks that common sense is qualified to draw a sufficient 
distinction, at least for his present purpose — that purpose 
evidently being to lead his readers to believe that the co- 
herent and concatenated proofs of design in the expressional 
features of the Pyramid are merely chance coincidences. 

Passing by the purely assumptive and unproved hypo- 
thesis of a vertical plumb bore from subterranean chamber 
to centre of Pyramid's base, we come to the descant on 
measure of base side length, in which Mr. Proctor labours with 
pitiable inefficiency to show that its length of 9,140 inches 
is not correct — his argument being that as four of the "best 
measures" give the length variously as 9,168, 9,163, 9,130, 
and 9,110, the extracted mean of 9,140 is inadmissible — and 
this, too, when he admits " that the Pyramid base is not now 
in a condition to be satisfactorily measured." If Mr. Proctor 
had any true idea of the insurmountable difficulty of measur- 
ing the sides' length of base, owing to the intervening hills 
of concreted rubbish that lie solidly piled against the sides, 
he would have generously accorded unqualified praise to the 
measurers, who had so closely approximated to the real and 



87 



true length which is given by the mean of their measures, 
instead of requiring a result such as might be demanded if 
the Great Pyramid had been intended solely for pure mathe- 
matics ; for in such, a thing either is or is not — without the 
smallest doubt or fractional part whatever. But in astro- 
nomy, geography, metrology, physics, and, in fact, all applied 
mathematics, all that man has done yet, or ever will do, is to 
make approaches to exact truth ; and so, even in measuring 
the Great Pyramid, the final result is only certain as to 
within what limits the truth must be, and it comes out, 
whether R. A. Proctor likes it or not, that within those limits 
are also contained the best modern science approaches to the 
measure of two or more features of God's universe, each of 
which feature is further pointed to, more or less in spirit or 
meaning, at the Great Pyramid. Hence the shape of the 
Great Pyramid does express the squaring of the circle, and 
the size does both give a base side measuring the days of the 
year in terms of a cubit the 10 7th of earth's polar semi- 
diameter, and also gives a vertical height 10 9th of sun's 
distance. Modern science cannot disprove these truths — in 
fact, the better the work of modern science, the more un- 
doubtedly is it established that those different truths are 
equally there — even, too, although the building was also used 
as a tomb or a national monument ; and although, in the third 
place, some of the very same measures of length, breadth, 
and weight are also found to tally with numbers from Daniel 
and Revelations, with regard to the religious and prophetic 
history of man. 

But, in brief, it may be replied to the doubt as to design, 
that when design is denied in the works of the Creator, we 
are quite prepared to place at its true value of worthlessness 
the doubt also expressed as to the presence of design in the 



88 



work of the architect, whose mighty monumental protest 
crowns the Ghizeh Hill. 

Mr. Proctor seems not to have known that the base side 
length of the Pyramid (so closely got at by outside measure- 
ments) is given fractionally correct in the ante and King's 
Chambers, and he would have done well had he studied the 
demonstrations on this point given by Major Tracy, R.A., 
and the Abbe Moigno, before rushing to the conclusion that 
the base line was an unknown and but an assumed quantity. 

The record of equinoctial precession is, according to Mr. 
Proctor, a very singular coincidence ; but it is a much more 
singular coincidence that the series of absolute facts ex- 
hibited by the position and metrology of the Pyramid are 
successively set down by Mr. Proctor as being the results 
of chance or mere coincidence — a conclusion, to reach which, 
requires a judgment " moved by the most energetic forget- 
fulness ; ' of unprejudiced reflection, by the spirit of doubt. 
In dilating on the sun distance, as given by Pyramid 
metrology, the same spirit of persistent disregard of demon- 
stration prevails, so much so as to render a detailed reply 
superfluous ; for Mr Proctor (referring to the Pyramid's sun 
distance metrical maximum) admits that — If we take the 
relation as exact, we should infer for the sun's distance 5,819 
thousand millions of inches, or 91,840,000 miles — an immense 
improvement on the estimate which for . so many years occu- 
pied a place of honour in our books of astronomy. Besides, 
there is strong reason for believing that, when the results of 
recent observations are worked out, the estimated sun dis- 
tance will be much nearer this Pyramidal value than even to 
the value, 91,400,000, recently adopted. 1 ' It is but necessary, 
as before, to italicise in order to illustrate the conclusion 
which follows in Mr. Proctor's mind. He says: — "This 



89 



result, which one would have thought so damaging to faith 
in the evidence from coincidence — nay, quite fatal after the 
other case (equinoctial precession), in which a close coinci- 
dence had appeard by merest accident — is regarded by the 
Pyramidalists as a perfect triumph for their faith." 

There is no use in following an argument of this kind. 
Where the stronger and more perfect the evidences of know- 
ledge and design are apparent, the more emphatically are 
they pronounced to be casual or merely accidental. 

The article of Mr. Proctor ends consistently with two 
garbled extracts from the work of Professor Smyth — when, 
instead of setting forth the author he is reviewing in a terse 
and compendious manner to his readers, he tries to make him 
ridiculous by such perversions as these : — In his last column 
he has a quotation (A) from "Our Inheritance," about little 
matters of inches of height of a pyramid passage, and then pro- 
claims that on such material the Great Pyramid men "base 
their religious belief" — giving a second quotation (B) from a 
part of the book totally different from quotation (A), there 
being nothing at all like (B), near (A), the one relating to 
the transverse and vertical height of the entrance passage. 
The other, an extract from a contention against the ultra- 
rationalistic doctrine of an Oxford clergyman, declaring that 
Jesus Christ and Christianity were no more Divinely inspired 
than Romulus and the Roman religion, or Menes and the 
Egyptian religion, or any other religion that has ever been 
successfully — for a time — propagated amongst men. 

Such an unwarrantable course as this, when pursued by a 
critic, divests his opinion of all weight, for any author can be 
made to apparently write incoherently by picking out a para- 
graph from one part of a book on one subject, and another 
from another part on a different subject, and then setting 



90 



them together as if the two had mutual relation and followed 
one another in the author's work. It is a sorry method, more 
ingenious than ingenuous, and would have been perhaps 
rightly treated by being let alone most severely. 

The sum of the matter is, that Mr. Proctor and others 
would have little difficulty in admitting the scientific claims 
of the Pyramid, if the claim to its being a metrical appendix 
to Bible truths were withdrawn. That claim it is which 
rouses the opposition of most of those who zealously, but in 
vain, deny the grant of Divine inspiration to Philitis; and 
yet, if the Pyramid were but a record of the scientific pro- 
ficiency of its builders, it would have little more than an 
antiquarian interest, which modern science can well afford to 
disregard. But its glory and its importance attach solely 
to its chronometric prophetic record, which feature will con- 
tinue to recommend it to the minds of Christian men as 
being an irrefragable testimony to the truth of the Bible, 
nathless the doubts of those who, with inefficient wanton- 
ness, scoff at its revelation as if it were some new religion 
which some people have been inventing, whereas the " Reli- 
gion of the Great Pyramid " is, in truth, the Religion of the 
Bible, to the inspiration of which it testifies by an evidence 
alike conclusive and infallible. 

Following Mr. Proctor's article in Fraser, and aiming dis- 
tinctly at the same end — viz., the taking from the Great 
Pyramid everything of a sacred symbolic character — there 
has been published in London a caricature diagram of the 
passages section of the Pyramid. The sheet has been got 
out anonymously, and is meant to impress its readers with 
the belief that the sacred prophetic metrology of the pas- 
sages—as first discovered by Mr. Robert Menzies — is but a 



91 



" fanciful exegesis of that wonderful monument," the record 
on the back of the diagram being as follows : — " The many 
scientific and cosmic references, and Scripture symbolisms of 
the Great Pyramid (in contrast Avith all the others), have 
been first and chiefly set forth by Professor C. Piazzi Smyth, 
F.R.S.E., &c, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, in 'Life and 
Work at the Great Pyramid,' and in ' The Antiquity of 
Intellectual Man,' and in a work on 4 Equal Surface Projec- 
tion for Maps.' These are indeed (almost all) well proved, 
deeply interesting and important truths, but their value neces- 
sitates the greater care that they become not mingled with 
false and fanciful exegesis of that wonderful monument." 

Now, the Scripture symbolisms of chiefest importance in 
the Pyramid are those of its prophetic metrology, whereby 
were foreshown the dispensation from the dispersion of man- 
kind at Babel to Moses, the Hebrew dispensation, the present 
or Christian dispensation, and in the latter the date of 
the Nativity — yet those are the very revelations which it is 
the object of the diagram to invalidate. The plan of the 
diagram is cunningly devised, and such as might deceive 
those who have not studied the subject. On the one side we 
have duly scaled what are termed " marks without events," 
and on the other a list of " events without dates." To 
make the lists "work," a simple but most efficacious plan is 
adopted — namely, a denial and alteration of the critically 
established and generally admitted initial dates of Pyramid 
chronology — as, for instance, that of the Nativity — that event 
being asserted by the diagrammists to have occurred " 3 to 5 
B.C." With an elastic assumption of this kind as an argu- 
ment, there is no difficulty in an apparent disproof of the 
Pyramid's sacred metrology, or of any chronological record 
which may be recklessly attacked. But any one reading the 
dissertation of the Rev. B. Galloway on the Nativity date, 



92 



will have no difficulty in concluding that the assertion of the 
diagrammists is a positive error. On a par with the foregoing 
in the matter of audacity is the argument — or assertion 
rather — that " Babel cannot have been at the date theoreti- 
cally assumed (the beginning of the entrance passage), as 
there was not then enough population to build it." This sort 
of argument may be heroic, but it is not conclusive. Would 
it not have been better to have supported the assertion by 
something like a statistical record, rather than put it forward 
in a purely dogmatic form, especially as such record was readily 
to be found? for on turning to the 10th chapter of Genesis 
we read an enumeration of the generations of the sons of 
Noah, which ends thus: — " These are the families of the sons 
of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by 
these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood." 
Reading this in connexion with the wild assertion that " there 
was not enough population " to build the Pyramid, is suffi- 
cient, one would think, to show the entire worthlessness of 
the diagrammist's assumption, even if we refrained from 
alluding to the work done by the existing population at the 
Tower of Babel, which oriental writers, with their usual 
exaggeration, say was 10,000 fathoms, or 12 miles high; or, 
taking the account of St. Jerome — which he asserts he had 
from those who examined its remains — rose to a height of 
four miles ; but in all soberness a stupendous work requiring 
a multitude of builders. Another assertion advanced by the 
authors of the diagram is that " the Great Pyramid is really 
2168 B.C. ; according to Brunnow's data, given as correct by 
Professor Smyth, this is 2164 } T ears before the birth of Christ, 
whereas the line in the passage is 2170 before the point 
supposed to show the Nativity — a difference of six years." 

Now, the truth in the matter is — as anyone can see for 
themselves by reading the connexion in " Our Inheritance " — 



93 



that Professor Smyth, while giving Brunnow's computation 
for what it is worth, adheres to his own date — 2170 B.C. — 
and advances excellent reasons for so doing. As to the 
record of " marks without events " on the diagram, they 
are simply marvellous in their absurdity. Every pivot- 
hole and cut-off in the passages is indicated, and events 
wanted to match; even the horizontal passage to Queen's 
Chamber — where nobody ever did look for metrological 
concordance — is placed under contribution, and, as might 
be expected, without result. But the " events without 
marks" catalogue is, if possible, more marvellous than the 
other; it would seem to be an extract from historic chrono- 
logy, in which a mark is wanted for " Judas Maccabaeus, Papal 
Persecutions, the Reformation," &c, &c, the wonder being 
that a call is not made for marks indicating Julius Caesar, 
Mohammed, Napoleon Bonaparte, the discovery of America, 
and the publication of the anonymous diagram. 

Such puerile sophistry is worth comment only as show- 
ing what men will sometimes descend to under the impulse 
of prejudice or incredulity. What the inspired architect of 
the Pyramid did evidently foreshow were the great world- 
influencing events of Time — the Divine dispensations (not 
the detailed results) of human history. Thus the great epochs 
of mankind's dispersion and of the Hebrew and Christian 
dispensations are the grand foreshown revelations of Philitis ; 
and if in the measurements of his record any minute errors 
occur, such errors are those of the instrumental translators — 
not of the work of the architect. 

Note. — I have just had sent to me a pamphlet by Watson F. Quinby, M.D., 
of Wilmington, Delaware, United States, which is devoted to the exposition of 
a wide and deep research in ethnology. The concluding remarks of the treatise 
are so remarkably coincident with the date result of the Pyramid regarding the 
termination of the present dispensation, that I give them in full : — 

"From the race of Adam, Noah was selected to be the father of the future 



94 



race ; from the race of Noah, Abram was selected ; from the race of Abram, 
David was selected ; and from David, on the mother's side, arose Christ — part 
human, part Divine — to be the head and type of a new race, which is now 
being selected from the earth. 

"He came to establish the kingdom of heaven upon earth, and this is what 
he taught — ' Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' His disciples 
expected that it would be set up immediately, but he gave them to understand 
differently, promising to return at some future time and establish his kingdom. 
All the prophets are agreed as to this matter. There were to be four great 
kingdoms to arise in succession on earth, to be then followed, without change of 
scene, by a fifth and final kingdom. This kingdom is to endure for ever — it is, 
moreover, to be established during the existence of the previous races. Even- 
tually, however, there is to be a new heaven and a new earth. As everything 
on the surface of the earth was once said to be destroyed by water, so after a 
time it is said the same complete destruction will come by fire, leaving nothing 
alive. Then the souls of the dead will be rehabilitated with new bodies, and live 
on the improved earth for ever. . . . The literal fulfilment of the greater 
part of the prophecies of Scripture makes us naturally solicitous in regard to the 
complete accomplishment of the remainder. The rise and fall of the three 
great empires mentioned by name — the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grecian, 
and the fourth so well described as evidently to refer to the Roman — have all 
taken place as foretold ; and the time seems approaching for the setting up of 
the fifth and final kingdom. ' A great day of preparation ' for this event is 
foretold, when 'many shall run to and fro,' and 'knowledge shall be increased,' 
which may well refer to our own day. 

" 'He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face ; keep thy munition, 
watch the way.' 

" 'The chariots shall be with flaming torches in the day of his preparation, 
and the fir trees shall be terribly shaken.' 

" 'The chariots shall range in the streets ; they shall seem like torches ; they 
shall run like lightning.' — (Nahum.) 

" The rapid development of art and science within the last hundred years is 
the most remarkable in the annals of the world — ' When shall these things be ? ' 
In the book of the prophet Daniel it is said — 'Seventy weeks are determined 
upon thy people, and upon thy holy city.' Seventy weeks of years would be 
490 years, at which time Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus. In another vision, 
though near the same time, he says — 'How long shall be the vision concerning 
the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary 
and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, unto two 
thousand and three hundred days.' These days are usually considered to mean 
years. Now, Jerusalem was destroyed Anno Domini 70. In order, then, to 
bring the date to the commencement of our era, the 70 years must be taken 
from the 490 years, which leaves 420 years. 

"Four hundred and twenty years taken from two thousand three hundred 
years, leave eighteen hundred and eighty years, which brings us to the year 
eighteen hundred and eighty-one (1881). 'Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,' 
whatever that may mean." 



95 



[Republished from "Life from the Dead." London : W. H. Guest, 
54, Paternoster-row.] 



THE INFIDEL SPIRIT OF OUR AGE. 

By Charles Casey. 

Every reflecting man, whose observation and knowledge has 
been applied to the present aspect, or mind-drift of our age, 
must be deeply and sadly impressed by the hue of infidelity 
reflected on its current, if not penetrating its deeper volume ; 
owing in part to political causes, in part to the natural vanity 
of our nature in the desire to be superhumanly wise, but 
making itself felt in any case through the literature no less 
than the social relations of our time. That there may be no 
misapprehension of my meaning, let me say that by infidelity 
I mean anti-Christian principles, whether they take the form 
of nature-worship — scientific substitution of the laws of the 
Creator for the Creator himself ; Pantheism, or the recogni- 
tion of God in every one of his works, not as resulting from, 
but constituting the Divinity ; Intellectualism, as deifying 
the human mind to the exclusion of a consideration of the 
mind of God ; or in that — the lowest of all types of infi- 
delity — Sadduceeic-materialism, that worships only those 
things which appeal or minister to the senses, passions, or 
appetites of the mind, and which is essentially of the earth, 
earthy. This general state, comprising within it the classes 
mentioned, as well as many not classified, may be said to 
prevail largely in Europe and America, and it is against this 
growing, spreading evil that the Christian Church has to do 
battle. 

Lest some should imagine that there is a disapprobation 



96 



conveyed of learning, science, or intellectual things in the 
above, it may be as well to say that in their proper place 
and sphere such are alike excellent and admirable ; but that 
sphere, and that place, is when they are ministers subservient 
to the glory of God and the real good of man, but are alike 
execrable and degrading when divorced from these two ruling 
motives. Let science bend itself to the task of tracing causa- 
tion to its secondary link, and winning from nature her 
jealously-held secrets, in order that man may be freed from 
the condign punishment with which she visits any infraction 
or non-observance of her laws, whether such transgression 
or disregard arise from an ignorance or wilful slight of them, 
and with reverent humility worship the divine grace which 
rewards such labours with success. Let learning employ its 
power to acquaint us with all and every of the histories of 
events, nations, great, good, or famous men, from which we 
may learn to be wiser and better. Let art, manufactures, 
commerce, and industries be prosecuted with honest zeal, and 
from high motives. But science, learning, art, manufactures, 
commerce, and industry, all are bounded by the temporal 
state of our existence, and therefore should ever be held by 
conviction as absolutely secondary to that which relates us 
to the immortal state of man's existence, to the unseen 
towards which we are momentarily gravitating — whitherward 
the universal soul of man, barbarous and civilized, yearns 
earnestly, save when its innate nature is crushed by an 
intellectual depravity which is of the evil one, or buried 
beneath a crass ignorance, the less deplorable of the two 
Sadduceeic falsities. 

To the thoughtless, and to superficial thinkers, there is a 
meretricious attraction in learning and science without regard 
to the offices they fill — they are as the flame to the moth ; 



97 



hence men who have attained eminence in those departments 
of the mind, yet who are infidels in religion, attract by their 
ability swarms of moth-like mentalists to be scorched in the 
flame of their false principles. But if such persons would 
pause, and reflect on the comparatively low altitude to which 
the human mind has reached, or can attain in its highest 
flight into the region of ultimate truth or causation, when 
God is left out of its thesis, they would then hold at its true 
value what is called " the advanced opinion " of our time. 

Let such thinkers place before their idols the phenomena 
of life, death, growth, function, will, that which is called 
accidental in events, or any other of the every-day problems 
of life and time, for solution, and see how that " bare, bald, 
and tawdry as a fingered moth," sophist and philosopher 
alike stand in their presence when God " the Almighty, 
Eternal, and Invisible," is separated from the vain and 
vicious theories which would ignore the Creator and deify 
the creature — reverence the effect, and despisingly deny 
the cause. Contrasted with such crude, comfortless, and 
unsatisfying speculations, how glorious and soul-filling is 
the belief and trust in that revelation of God to man 
contained in His inspired Word, which places before the 
human mind, as the object of its faith, a God "who pitieth 
us, even as a father pitieth his children." Mighty to save, 
and more ready to grant than we to ask, every good and per- 
fect gift, in whose grace we live and move and have our 
being — with whom the soul can ever hold communion in and 
through the vicissitudes of human life, ever in the darkest 
hour sustaining it by the hope of that rest which remaineth 
for the spirits of the just made perfect — showing the true 
value of time as measuring this our frail, fleeting, transitory 
life, by holding up to the eye of faith the promise and the 



98 



glory of the incorporeal sequence of our earthly existence — 
the real and indescribable beatitudes of everlasting life. 

Furthermore, let the contrast be carried down from the 
spiritual excellence of Christianity when compared with the 
frigid religion of Intellectualism, and let the results of the 
divine principles which the Saviour taught as relating to 
man and time be considered in comparison with the results 
achieved by the highest development of heathen mind, and 
we find that all of broad-based humanity, of charity, of bene- 
volence springing from it as from a root, of virtue, worthy of 
the name, of heroism, founded in abstract principle, not in 
impulse or applause, of honesty in thought, speech and act, 
from the same motive — in short, all that has tended to truly 
civilise and elevate man for 2,000 years, as having resulted 
from the teachings of Christ, and prevailing most in those 
nations which have in the greatest degree preserved and 
acted on that teaching in its purity ; and although much 
remains, in this our time, of evil, the conclusion is definite 
and clear, that evil remains only in that degree resulting 
from a departure by men or nations, in act or principle, from 
the heavenly teachings of the Prince of Peace. 

The question then remains, what hope does the future hold 
of a better state of things ? This — that this sporadic, or 
perhaps epidemic mental disease of infidelity, will have 
assuredly its decline as well as its cumulative period and 
crisis. Truth is of God and everlasting. Falsehood is of 
Satan and temporary — there may be here and there a seem- 
ing triumph of error over righteous belief — but 

"Truth crushed to earth will rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers, 
But error wounded writhes in pain, 
And dies amid her worshippers." 



99 



In the meantime it becomes the duty and privilege of every 
Christian man and community to do battle stoutly for the 
faith once delivered to the saints, according to the ability 
that God hath given them, whether it be in the van of con- 
flict or the fortress of steadfast faith ; at all times and in 
every place ready to testify that " Christ was the true light 
which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world," and 
that all who are not with him are against him. And there is 
also the additional fact that if there be activity in infidel 
manifestation of mind, such demonstration has aroused the 
religious sentiment into militant position, and none but those 
of weak or unstable faith can entertain any doubt of the 
issue, when the record of what God has done for his Church, 
in the old time before us, is remembered, and that unfailing 
promise — " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
the world." 



100 



AN INFIDEL ANSWERED. 

" Ne sulor ultra crepidam." 

As a typical illustration of the objections which are used 
against the theory of the Great Pyramid, I subjoin a critique 
on " Philitis," which has been recently sent to me as being 
from the pen of " a very clever man — an open and professed 
unbeliever in divine inspiration in the Bible, and everything 
else — so clever as to be able to lead other men's minds astray." 

The name of the critic I have not been favoured with ; 
therefore, having no knowledge of him, I shall be able to 
consider his remarks without the disturbing element of per- 
sonality interfering with my comment, and may fairly con- 
clude that the critique which follows contains all that could 
be said by an intellectualist, such as the writer is represented 
to be. A copy of " Philitis " having been sent to this writer 
for his opinion, he replied as follows : — 

" It is difficult to review ' Philitis ' seriously. It is a book, 
while it would have delighted the late Professor De Morgan 
to honour, he would have classed the author with ' squarers 
of the circle ' and ' searchers for the philosopher's stone.' 
Unfortunately, Professor Piazzi Smyth, in his work, ' Our 
Inheritance in the Great Pyramid,' sowed seed which has 
grown and ripened in the present pamphlet. For example, 
the statement that ' the vertical height of the Pyramid multi- 
plied by 10 9 gives the mean distance of the sun from the 
earth ' (p. 12), is a good illustration of the author's style of 
reasoning. The same process, a little varied, might have 
produced the mystical number of ' the beast ' — viz., 666 — or, 
in fact, anything the author pleased. That the Pyramid is a 
record of the astronomical and cosmical knowledge of the 
Egyptians, rather than a mere tomb, cannot, I think, be 



101 



doubted, and this knowledge we owe chiefly to Professor 
Piazzi Smyth ; any theory more than this is out of the lucu- 
bration of a mind probably partially educated, and certainly 
slightly warped, as is abundantly apparent in the ' Octaves " 
which compose half the bulk of ' Philitis/ To refute each 
statement categorically would be a work of supererogation — 
suffice it to say that nearly every conclusion of the author's is 
based on assumed premises, which will not bear investigation." 

Before proceeding to a direct examination of this critique 
in the portion which simulates argument, I may be permitted 
to explain the difficulty which this writer experienced in 
attempting to review "Philitis" seriously, as arising from 
the object of the prose portion, which is to show that the 
architect of the Great Pyramid was divinely inspired in the 
plan of its work, and that the discovered truths of its con- 
struction are consonant with, and complementary to, the reve- 
lation of divine truth in the Bible. This object is quite 
sufficient to make it a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence 
to the sceptic, and to render a serious review of its argument 
impossible. The reason of this incapacity is, that against this 
unhappy class of unbelievers the terrible decree has been 
executed — " The eyes of their understanding" have been 
" darkened," so that even " the light which is in them is 
darkness." As well might the opinion of one born blind be 
relied on respecting colours, as the opinion of this writer 
regarding religious truth, which his mind is virtually and 
literally incapable of understanding. But as he evidently 
believes the contrary, it may be well to follow the line of his 
remarks in test, if it be only to show the length and depth of 
his comment, and the calibre of the mind that presumes to 
sit in judgment on, and reject the testimony of, the eternal 
truths of God. 



102 



A reason may be asked why a disability should extend to 
this writer's criticism on the scientific portion of the argu- 
ment? That reason is not far to look for, as the scientific 
testimony of the Pyramid is but the base supporting its reli- 
gious evidence, and must therefore be slurred when it cannot 
be disproved. 

But why should religious truth be obnoxious to the sceptic ? 
For one among many reasons — viz., that the Bible gives no 
place for, or countenance to, intellectual pride — that idol on 
whose shrine such men heap the labour of their wasted lives — 
hence its doctrines and teachings are naturally opposed by 
them with a truly demoniac rancour. The reviewer, finding 
the difficulty of being serious, attempts to be jocose, but 
the effort is not happy in result, he evidently being one of 
those who " depend on their memory for their wit, and rely 
on their imagination for their facts." Thus, after a flourish 
of the late Professor de Morgan's name in the way of 
attenuated sarcasm, he becomes quite pathetic regarding the 
results following the publication of " Our Inheritance in the 
Great Pyramid," and is seemingly much depressed by the 
" unfortunate " circumstance that the seed sown by that 
good labourer, Piazzi Smyth, has "grown and ripened " in 
" Philitis." Though deeply sensible of the unintended com- 
pliment conveyed in this admission, I feel I shall not be suc- 
cessful in mitigating the regret of this philosopher by assuring 
him that this little index pamphlet represents but one grain, 
as it were, of that seed which, sown broadcast over the earth, 
has grown and ripened into rich and extending harvests in 
every quarter of the globe — harvests, for the garnering of 
whose golden grain such cavillers as this critic are not privi- 
leged to thrust in their puny sickles. Let me now come to 
the illustration furnished by this reviewer of the " style of 



103 



reasoning " which he believes to be fallacious. The statement 
selected is, that " the vertical height of the Pyramid multi- 
plied by the ninth power of ten, gives the mean distance of 
the sun from the earth." His comment on this demonstration 
is just such as might be expected from a critic such as the 
reviewer, who says — "The same process, a little varied, might 
have produced the mystical number of the beast (666), or, in 
fact, anything the author pleased." This being the single 
attempt at argument made by the writer, I shall pass his 
second doleful effort at wit — in the allusion to the Apocalyptic 
numerals — and treat his sophism in a " serious " manner. 
What does this writer mean by the terms ''same process?" 
The phrase can have but one of two meanings, viz. — the 
general meaning of arithmetical multiplication, or the special 
meaning of the Pyramid height multiplied by 10 9 . If the 
former sense be applied to the author's words, they assert the 
barren platitude that 111x6 = 666, and if the latter value be 
attached to the terms, the observation becomes sheer nonsense, 
for a special multiplicand with a special multiplier can pro- 
duce but one result, and cannot be " a little varied " without 
an entire alteration of the problem. 

But the reviewer, when writing his critique, either did or 
did not know that the Pyramid height and 10 9 were the only 
factors that could be used in solving the problem of the sun's 
distance — the exact and inflexible rules imposed by the Pyra- 
mid's science not admitting of any "process" " a little varied " 
being experimented with by ingenious profanity in exposition 
of the truths exhibited in the design of its inspired architect. 

In that design the before-named factors — viz., the Pyramid 
height and it angle, are alike fixed quantities, their relation 
being that for every nine units of vertical or sun-pointing rise 
in the former, there are ten units of inward and upward 



104 



incline of the latter to the point of equality in vertical height — 
a ratio which cannot be a "little altered," no more than the 
Pyramid can be a little moved. If the reviewer knew this 
co-relation of the factors when writing his critique, I fear it 
would be difficult to defend it if it were arraigned on the 
charge of wilfully suppressing the truth; and if he did not 
know the " reason why " of the " process " when attempting 
to be more witty than wise, it may be fairly presumed (even 
though his ability and information be accepted at the given 
estimate) that what he does not know would make a very 
valuable and most interesting volume. Having therefore a 
due regard to the infirmity of the critic, and the gravity of 
the subject under consideration, it is well to state, for the 
serious reflection of such commentators, that the problem 
alluded to is not an affair of mere arithmetic, or the 10 9 mul- 
tiplier of the Pyramid height simply a suggestion of Mr. 
Pe trie's or any other mundane mind, but is given by the 
shape of the Great Pyramid as it was built 4,000 years ago, 
remains so still, and cannot be altered. 

Furthermore, such a feature was absolutely required in a 
building wherein the architect had fundamentally expressed 
the annual revolution of the earth round the sun in a typical 
manner and in a certain numerical scale, so that after that 
monumentalized expression of solar relation was discovered, 
the sun-distance was as naturally to be looked for as being 
monumentalized also, as is the second half of a chapter or 
book to be looked for as following its first half or chapter ; 
and as in the best-written book a few words taken out of it 
and used by themselves, may have a very different meaning 
from that conveyed when in connexion with what went before 
or followed, or may be used by a designing critic to express 
something never intended by the original writer, so may 



105 



single truths in the grand concatenated design of the Pyra- 
mid, when detached from their connexion in the general plan 
of the architect, be warped or misused by unqualified or 
unscrupulous unbelievers. But the temerity of this reviewer 
is not limited even to such exhibition of wild comment as that 
alluded to, as will be seen in the audacious assertion that 
" the Pyramid is a record of the astronomical and cosmical 
knowledge of the Egyptians " — an assertion totally unsup- 
ported by even an attempt at proof, unverified by historical 
record, and altogether so opposed to truth that it may be truly 
classed as " the lucubration of a mind probably partially edu- 
cated, and certainly slightly warped," if the reviewer will 
permit me to use the elegant impoliteness of his remark 
applied to the metrical portion of " Philitis " in the former 
edition. From the present pamphlet that portion has been 
principally excluded to make room for matter more important, 
as being more consonant to its subject. The " disquisition " 
has already had abundant and favourable " review " by skilled 
and qualified critics; and had I hitherto any misgiving as 
to its merits, the censure of this reviewer has completely 
removed it, and he will, I trust, bear with me in timidly 
assuring him that I shall treasure his remark as being the 
most valuable commendation which it has yet won. 

And as the first few lines of his critique show a heroic 
capacity for ignoring the venerable laws of grammatical con- 
struction (such as only a censor of this class would be justified 
in exhibiting), so does its- entirety convey the impression that 
even a writer possessing the profound abilities of our reviewer 
may have not only a great deal to learn, but also a great deal 
to forget, if he would aspire to the [high position he assumes 
of being a qualified and unprejudiced censor. 

In the closing paragraph of the review the critic assumes 
the oracular style, and is amusing, although not instructive. 



106 



Thus lie assures the reader that " to refute each statement 
categorically would be a work of supererogation." And what 
is the reason alleged for this autocratic assertion ? " Suffice 
it to say," he continues, " that nearly every conclusion of the 
author is based on assumed premises, which will not bear 
investigation." It 'is to be regretted that the reviewer did 
not select an additional instance of assumed premises, and 
unbend so far as to refute it after the manner of reasoning 
applied to the sun-distance, as it would afford an opportunity 
of showing that, as in that instance, the premises would not 
only bear investigation, but admit of its truth being demon- 
strated. The difficulty was probably foreseen by the critic, 
and disposed of it in the off-hand manner of his assertion, but 
the fact remains that the premises of Pyramid argument are 
not assumed in any single instance ; they are data of line, 
angle, and capacity, and as such, by their coincidence with 
other commensurable truths, lead up to cosmic and ethical 
conclusions — clear and indubitable to the receptivity of any 
unprejudiced or unbiassed mind. Those readers who have 
studied the theory of the Great Pyramid may be inclined to 
think that even this slight notice of such objections as the 
foregoing is a waste of time, if not a want of prudence — that 
this class of thinkers are best let alone with their idols. To 
such, my apology is, that in my own case, even after I had 
visited the Pyramid, and when possessing but a superficial 
knowledge of its construction such as this writer has, I 
occupied the position he now holds as a doubter of its claim 
to a supernatural wisdom of design. But after I had seriously 
studied the exhaustive demonstration of Professor Smyth, I 
became a believer by necessity, as it is to be hoped the writer 
of the critique will be, when he will have overcome the 
difficulty of giving the question a serious review. 



107 



THE MYSTEKY OF THE PYRAMIDS. 

By Richakd A. Proctor. 

As the moth is fascinated by the flame, nor is warned by 
having its wings scorched, so it would seem is Mr. Proctor 
fascinated by the Pyramid subject, and returns in the June 
number of Belgravia to flutter round the attractive theme, 
heedless of the singeing which resulted from his Fraser article. 
Brilliant and rapid as are the though t-wings of the gifted 
writer, he had better beware of the Pyramid lest it lure him 
to his undoing ; and a friend of its theory might well exclaim 
with Job, when reading R. A. Proctor's attack — " Oh ! that 
mine enemy would write a book" — for in such would be 
found the most florid failure possible to prejudice, in an 
attempt to controvert the incontrovertible,, The Fraser 
contribution may be considered as a pickaxe attempt to 
overturn the Pyramid, by implying that what he cynically 
termed " the religion of the Great Pyramid " was something 
differing from the religion of the Bible. The Belgravia 
article may be regarded as an attempt to build a pyramid of 
sand by the aid of a " Zadkiel " trowel and astrological 
mortar. The dissertation opens by a sonorous dash through 
an enumeration of the ancient and modern theories respecting 
the purpose for which the pyramids were built, intending to 
show the reader that the author is perfectly at home in his 
subject, and therefore rules authoritatively when dismissing 
as untenable all others but the tomb theory, which he 
considers to be a by no means satisfactory explanation of their 
use or purpose. Then follows a critical examination, in which 
the author says : — " It is hardly necessary to say perhaps that 
the history of the Great Pyramid is of paramount importance 



108 



in this inquiry. Whatever purpose pyramids were originally 
intended to subserve, must have been conceived by the 
builders of that pyramid. New ideas have been superadded 
by the builders of later pyramids, but it is unlikely that the 
purpose can have been entirely abandoned. Some original 
great purpose there was, which the rulers of ancient Egypt 
proposed to fulfil by building very massive pyramidal struc- 
tures on a particular plan. It is by inquiring into the history 
of the first and most massive of these structures, and by 
examining its construction, that we shall have the best chance 
of finding out what that great purpose was." 

Here it will be seen the author has put forward an 
assumption as an argument, and improperly applied to all the 
pyramids an assertion which is applicable to the Great 
Pyramid alone ; for, while it is strictly true that " a great 
purpose " was meant to be subserved by the primary pyramid, 
and that purpose exhibited " on a particular plan " conceived 
by its architect, it by no means follows that the latter 
pyramids — built in ignorant and imperfect imitation of it — 
had any but the one purpose, which it is positively known 
they were used for — viz., sepulture — a purpose which may 
have been also the sole idea of Cheops r but which was not the 
essential idea in the mind of the architect, as has been 
demonstrated exhaustively by modern translation of his plan. 

But whatever the motive of Cheops may have been, and 
however attractive that subject may be to Mr. Proctor, as 
lying within the boundless realm of speculation, it would be 
alike useless and unprofitable to discuss the many suppositions 
advanced, the more especially as the design of the architect is 
the matter to be considered, and remains available for test 
and translation. The theory founded on that design by 
Mr. John Taylor, and the reasons advanced in its support 



109 



by him, Mr. Proctor declines to discuss on page 437, but 
relenting on page 438, the Pyramidists generally, including 
Taylor and Smyth, are disposed of in a summary manner, in 
so far as they claim "that the Pyramid was erected for some 
purpose connected with religion," the argument advanced 
against their theory being as follows : — " There are many very 
obvious difficulties surrounding this theory ; as, for example, 
(i.) the absurd waste of power in setting supernatural machi- 
nery at work 4,000 years ago with cumbrous devices to record 
its object, when the same machinery, much more simply 
employed now, would effect the alleged purpose far more 
thoroughly ; (ii.) the enormous amount of human misery and 
its attendant hatreds brought about by this alleged divine 
scheme ; and (iii.) the futility of an arrangement by which 
the pyramid was only to subserve its purpose when it had 
lost that perfection of shape on which its entire significance 
depended, according to the theory itself. But, apart from 
these, there is a difficulty, nowhere noticed by Smyth or his 
followers, which is fatal, I conceive, to this theory of the 
pyramid's purpose. The second pyramid, though slightly 
inferior to the first in size, and probably far inferior in quality 
of masonry, is still a structure of enormous dimensions, which 
must have required many years of labour from tens of 
thousands of workmen. Now, it seems impossible to explain 
why Chephren built this second pyramid, if we adopt Smyth's 
theory respecting the first pyramid. For either Chephren 
knew the purpose for which the Great Pyramid was built, 
or he did not know it. If he knew that purpose, and it was 
that indicated by Symth, then he also knew that no second 
pyramid was wanted. On that hypothesis, all the labour 
bestowed on the second pyramid was wittingly and wilfully 
wasted. This, of course, is incredible. But, on the other 



110 



hand, if Chephren did not know what was the purpose for 
which the Great Pyramid was built, what reason could 
Chephren have had for building a pyramid at all ? The only 
answer to this question seems to be that Chephren built the 
second pyramid in hopes of finding out why his brother had 
built the first, and this answer is simply absurd. It is clear 
enough that whatever purpose Cheops had in building the 
first pyramid, Chephren must have had a similar purpose in 
building the second ; and we require a theory which shall at 
least explain why the first pyramid did' not subserve for 
Chephren the purpose which it subserved, or was meant to 
subserve, for Cheops. The same reasoning may be extended 
to the third pyramid, to the fourth, and in fine to all the 
pyramids, forty or so in number, included under the general 
designation of the Pyramids of Ghizeh or J eezeh." 

There is a tone of locomotive-logic in this argument (i.), 
where a " icaste of power " in " setting supernatural machinery 
to work " are the terms chosen by the critic— a thought and 
its expression as irreverent as they are irrelevant, when the 
power and wisdom of God are implied — a thoughtless pre- 
sumption, which warrants the rebuke (with slight alteration) 
to those who would 

"Take from His hand the balance and the rod, 
Rejudge His wisdom, and be god of God." 
The waste of power in supernatural machinery argument may 
be therefore best treated by being passed over as a perhaps 
unintentional, but not the less impious, aspersion on Divine 
power and wisdom. 

Argument (ii.) is shallow as its predecessor is arrogant. 
" The enormous amount of human misery and its attendant 
hatreds brought about by this alleged divine scheme," writes 
Mr. Proctor, such " scheme " being the sealing up of the 



Ill 



Pyramid's testimony to the truth of Bible record until the 
fulness of the time of its revelation had come. Had the 
writer shown that human misery and its attendant hatreds 
were unknown amongst the nations which disbelieve the 
Bible and reject its religion, his arguments would have some 
depth ; or had he shown that since the evidence of the Pyra- 
mid has been added in support of the Bible's claim to inspira- 
tion, " human misery and its attendant hatreds " had ceased, 
then would the florid proposition have had some force, but, as 
it stands, the only difficulty is in comprehending how a writer 
of Mr. Proctor's ability should have deliberately exhibited an 
argument so futile and fallacious. 

But argument (iii.) has not even the seeming force of the 
preceding, as in its first proposition it takes for granted that 
the Great Pyramid " has lost that perfection of shape on 
which its entire significance depended," whereas the fact is 
that the perfect shape of the Pyramid has been recovered 
both in its external and interior features, as truly and 
minutely as if it had been measured at the time of its com- 
pletion. Having dogmatised satisfactorily, Mr. Proctor is 
pleased to unbend from the gravity of the philosopher to the 
levity of the humourist, when, though still wearing the horrid 
mask of the dilemma with its horns, he rivals " Mark Twain' 
in the following argument: — Chephren either did or did not 
know, when building his pyramid, the purpose for which 
Cheops built the Great Pyramid. If he knew the purpose 
of the architect, then he knew that no other pyramid was 
wanted ; but if he did not know, then the only solution of 
the question is, that " Chephren built the second pyramid in 
hopes of finding out why his brother had built the first." To 
culminate the joke, we are assured that the latter supposition 
is absurd, but there was scarcely a necessity for restricting 



112 



the term to the humorous proposition, which reminds us 

somewhat of the "crocodile" sophism of " Chrysippus," at 

which Lucian laughs in his " Vit. Auct." 
— 

Now, it might have saved Mr. Proctor the labour of his 
joke had he imagined the possibility of Cheops designing 
the Great Pyramid for his mausoleum, and Chephren build- 
ing the second pyramid with the same motive, as regarding a 
sepulchre for himself, and so also all the other builders of the 
remaining pyramids, but that Cheops, Chephrenes, and their 
successors were all equally ignorant of the purpose expressed 
in the design of the architect Philitis, and consequently every 
one departed more and more from the expressional features of 
the original building, having nothing in common with it save 
a rude and imperfect resemblance in form, and the capacity 
of being used for sepulchral purposes. This view is supported 
by facts, as the latter pyramids have been found, as far as 
explored, to have merely a base course or subterranean 
mummy chamber, and to have been used for sepulchral pur- 
poses, while wanting the central chambers of the Great 
Pyramid, as well as the mathematical accuracy and expres- 
sion of its design, and therefore definitely answer the question 
" why the first pyramid did not subserve for Chephren the 
purpose which it subserved, or was meant to subserve, for 
Cheops." 

But this is not all, for the splendour of argument is totally 
eclipsed by magnificence of enumeration when Mr. Proctor, 
with a lavish disregard of fact, says : — " The same reasonirg 
may be extended to the third pyramid, the fourth, and in fine 
to all the pyramids, forty or so in number, included under the 
designation of the Pyramids of Ghizeh or Jeezeh." The 
scrupulous anxiety to avoid a possibility of error in mistaking 
the pyramids meant, by giving the double orthography, 



113 



Ghizeh or Jeezeh, is very impressive, as indicating a severely 
critical effort on the part of the writer, but our confidence is 
shaken by the fact that the Pyramids of Ghizeh or Jeezeh 
are only nine in number, and we confess to Mr. Proctor 
being the first and only writer whom we have ever known to 
include, " under the general designation of the Pyramids of 
Ghizeh or Jeezeh," the thirty-eight (not forty or so) pyramids 
which are found stretching for some fifty geographical miles 
along the western bank of the Nile, and classified under the 
separate designations of those of Aboo Roash, Zowyat El 
Arrian, Reegah, Aboosir, Saccara, Mustabet El Faraoon, 
Dashoor, Lisht, Meydoom, Illahoon, Howara, and Biahmoo. 

Now, as Mr. Proctor may return to this subject, and as 
his undoubted ability and felicitous style would adorn any 
theme, it is to be hoped that he may inform himself 
thoroughly in the future before either attacking a theory 
which has had the most critical test applied to it before 
acceptance, or propounding a speculation which, while pleasing 
the imagination, is more romantic than real; for we cannot 
help saying that when a writer is so grossly erroneous in the 
primary matter of enumeration and classification, he can 
scarcely be accepted as an authority on a subject which has 
evidently had but a superficial attention at his hands. 

Through eleven pages following the quotation given above, 
Mr. Proctor sets up, and bowls down, the astronomical obser- 
vatory theory, the sun worship temple theory, the treasure 
stronghold theory, &c, and entering into, as it were, the 
mind of Cheops, goes so far as to recount what was " most 
probably the reply" of that king to the astronomers — all very 
graphic, and strongly in proof of the writer's power and 
reach of imagination, but nothing more ; and then we are led 
up to an acceptance of the theory that Cheops, Chephren, 

H 



114 



and all the other pyramid builders were believers in alchemy 
and astrology, and devoted their attention to casting horo- 
scopes, trying to discover the philosopher's stone and the 
elixir of life in the dark sepulchral chambers of the pyramids. 
This wild conjecture is finally proved thus : — "But, after 
all," says Mr. Proctor, " it must be admitted that the 
strongest evidence in favour of the astrological (and alchemi- 
cal) theory of the pyramids is to be found in the circumstance 
that all other theories seem untenable." 

We can only say that if this be the strongest evidence the 
astrological and alchemical theory admits of, those who accept 
it must be easily satisfied both as to logic and theory, and 
should at once embrace and hold fast Mr. Proctor's remark- 
able solution of " The Mystery of the Pyramids." 



115 



THE PROBLEM OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
By Richard A. Proctor. 

In the Contemporary Review of Sept., 1879, Mr. Proctor has 
again been lured by the Great Pyramid to the composition 
of perhaps the most dreary article that has ever flowed from 
his versatile pen. Beginning in Frazers Magazine with a 
disquisition on " The Religion of the Great Pyramid," he 
displayed in that paper a gross absence of knowledge con- 
cerning many of the most marked features of the venerable 
structure, and gravely reasoned from imaginary data with the 
inevitable result of reaching a wildly wrong conclusion. Next 
appeared a contribution to JBelgravia, on " The Mystery of 
the Pyramids," in which he showed but little advance in 
correct acquaintance with his subject (not knowing even the 
number of the pyramids composing the Ghiza group, which 
he actually stated to be "forty or so" whereas the Ghizeh 
group are only nine in number — viz., three large and six 
small), and any progress which he did make tended in a per- 
sistently wrong direction. The latest addition to the litera- 
ture of the subject from Mr. Proctor's pen is the article in 
the Contemporary Review, noted above, which has already 
had an incisive comment from Professor Piazzi Smyth in the 
Banner of Israel of October the 8th (subjoined, p. 121), from 
which it will be seen that Mr. Proctor is convicted of most 
careless reading, as well as of unscrupulously false assertion 
in his treatise. 

In the article under consideration Mr. Proctor has made 
such advance in the study of his subject as to confess a 



116 



conviction that the architect of the Great Pyramid was an 
advanced astronomer for his time — 2170 B.C. — not, of course, 
the equal of Mr. Proctor, a.d. 1879, but still a good worker, 
whose positional choice of site was in error to the extent of 
one mile, 1,512 yards, south of present latitude 30° N. — which 
error, Mr. Proctor explains, arose from an unacquaintance 
with the law of refraction. The argument on the point is 
founded on the purely hypothetical and speculative assump- 
tion of Mr. Proctor — that Philitis should have raised the 
monument on the precise present parallel of 30° N., and not 
on 29° 58' 51", the position rightly chosen 2170 B.C. 

Let us now see what Professor Smyth has to say on this 
subject. Turning to p. 70 et seq. of " Our Inheritance in the 
Great Pyramid," we read as follows: — " But indication will 
be afforded presently respecting another test of nearly the 
same thing (viz., the accordance of the Pyramid's angle with 
the cardinal points of astronomy), not by angle, but by 
distance on the surface ; and, further, that the architect did 
propose to place the Great Pyramid in the astronomical 
latitude of 30° N., whether that exact quantity was to be 
practical or theoretical ; while my own astronomical observa- 
tions in 1865 have proved, from the results of several nights' 
work, that it stands so near to 30° as the latitude parallel 
29° 58' 51". A sensible defalcation this, from 30°, it is true, 
but not all of it necessarily error ; for if the original designer 
had wished that men should see with their bodily rather than 
their mental eyes the pole of the sky from the foot of the Great 
Pyramid at an altitude before them of 30°, he would have 
had to take account of the refraction of the atmosphere, and 
that would have necessitated the building standing not in 30°, 
but in 29° 58' 22". Whence we are entitled to say that the 
latitude of the Great Pyramid is actually by observation 



117 



between the two very limits assignable, but not to be dis- 
criminated, by theory as it is at present. The precise middle 
point, however, between the two theoretical latitudes being 
29° 59' 11", and the observed place being 29° 58' 51", there 
is a difference of twenty seconds which may have to be 
accounted for; and Dr. Hooke's question upon it would 
certainly be — Can the earth's axis have shifted so much in 
4,000 years, with regard to the crust, that the latitudes of 
places have altered that quantity in that length of time — viz., 
20" of space in 4,000 years?" 

Dr. Hooke, it may be mentioned, was Secretary of the 
Royal Society of London, and in a discourse on Earthquakes, 
about the year 1677, remarked — "Whether the axis of the 
earth's rotation hath and doth continually, by a slow pro- 
gression, vary its position with respect to the parts of the 
earth, and, if so, how much and which way, which must vary 
both the meridian lines of places and also their particular 
latitudes?" This theory of Dr. Hooke's, although it appears 
startling at a first glance, is necessary to an explanation of the 
fossil records of the earth, which show that such change has 
positively taken place in the past of our planet.* 

Having filled no less than thirteen pages of the Contem- 
porary with a wearisome, verbose, and reiterated a priori 
hypothesis and dissertation of, and on, the possible use of the 
shadows and stellar methods by the architect, Mr. Proctor 
devotes the remaining thirteen pages of his contribution to a 

* While the microscopically accurate observations of latitude at the Royal 
Observatory, Greenwich, during the 100 years or so that that establishment has 
been in existence, tend to confirm the Great Pyramid result, in direction cer- 
tainly, and in quantity probably, and yet Mr. R. A. P. has entirely overlooked 
that great law and fact of nature, with which anyone ought to be most familiar, 
if he would pronounce on the affairs of the surface of this earth 4,000 years ago. 
See Louis Siguier's " World Before the Deluge," pp. 378 et seq. 



118 



theory principally relating to the use of the grand gallery. 
Mr. Proctor is now ready to grant that the entrance and 
ascending passages, as well as the grand gallery, are not in the 
meridian plane of the Pyramid's base line, as he proved they 
should be, and asserted they were, in his Frazer article ; but, 
moreover, now shows that they should be exactly where they 
are, and admits that the meridional plane would not have suited 
the work of Philitis or the former hypothesis of Mr. Proctor. 

Denuding his theory of its laboured word-drapery, Mr. 
Proctor's present idea of the grand gallery is that it was built 
for the purpose of observing the southern heavens, as the 
entrance passage had been for observing the northern sky, 
and that the fiftieth course of the Pyramid's masonry was an 
immense platform on which the astronomers stood to hear and 
record the reports of the observers stationed at various parts 
of the gallery ; that the Pyramid remained in this state until 
the death of Cheops, whose horoscope the astronomers were 
employed in casting, and that after the demise of the king the 
Pyramid was carried up to a point, cased and closed up as his 
tomb. 

To one acquainted with the recklessness of theory which 
Mr. Proctor is at times capable of, this proposition is not sur- 
prising; but to anyone having even a limited knowledge of 
the structural features of the Pyramid, the history of the 
course and mode of its erection in Herodotus, and not 
acquainted with Mr. Proctor's capabilities, the audacity of 
the theory is simply wonderful. The fact is that on this 
same fiftieth course was built the central chamber of the 
monument — the wonderful "king's chamber," as it is called — 
on which the resources of skill and mathematical knowledge 
were exhausted, in whose measures are found the key and 
coincidences of all the expressional measures of the whole 



119 



building, and whose roof-construction is evidence of its being 
built to bear up the enormous superincumbent weight of the 
Pyramid. Up to and into that supreme chamber the grand 
gallery led, without any provision for stellar observation } 
through the 200 feet of solid stone masonry which lies between 
it and the southern face of the structure ; but perhaps we shall 
find Mr. Proctor in a future theory getting over the difficulty, 
in his perfectly original manner, by claiming that the ven- 
tilating channels of the chamber, when supplied with a water 
mirror at their base angle, served the purposes of stellar 
observation and the difficulty of his characteristic theory. 

There is a prevailing feature in Mr. Proctor's article which, 
to speak of charitably, is not logical : he professes to write of 
and on " The Great Pyramid" and yet he argues from and 
uses interchangeably the other pyramids in Egypt, which are 
known to be but imperfect and profane imitations as to shape 
of the perfect and primeval monument erected by Philitis, 
not one of which has an ascending passage, or other than a 
subterranean burial chamber. 

He has likewise chosen bad company in adopting Proclus 
as an authority, an apostate from Christianity, who wrote 
bitterly against the faith, but who possibly is not known by 
Mr. Proctor as being a writer who, while possessing informa- 
tion on astrology, and an acquaintance with the works of 
Plato, was totally ignorant of the plan, structure, or meaning 
of the Great Pyramid. 

Let Mr. Proctor put aside such authors as the Lycian 
disciple of Syrianus, leave Proclus Diadocus to deserved 
oblivion, and take the trouble to really master the facts 
capable of bearing test in the structure and expressional 
measures of the Great Pyramid, and there is hope that (when 
he has shaken himself free from the trammels of prejudice 



120 



and the seduction of verbose speculation, avoiding the temp- 
tation of display in hypothetical theory, and has conquered 
the weakness of clever flippancy when treating a serious 
subject) his robust advocacy of the claims of the Great 
Pyramid as an exponent of scientific and religious truth shall 
value and adorn the pages of a future number of some leading 
serial. 



121 



THE PROBLEM OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
Piazzi Smyth's Reply to R. A. Proctor. 

The above is the title of a paper in the September number 
of the Contemporary Review, by that able, stirring, insatiable 
writer, Mr. R. A. Proctor, and is replete with his charac- 
teristic defects as well as excellences. Nor is the discourse 
very new, for the main argument throughout appears to be 
the same as that set forth by him to a Manchester audience 
several months ago, and not very much to their edification. 

But that may have been their fault ; so by all means let us 
inquire what the said main argument, as now furbished up 
for the Contemporary Review, really, purely, and simply is. 

It is an endeavour, by Mr. R. A. P., to account by his 
own new suppositions for some of the grandest historic facts 
about the old, old Great Pyramid ; much in the same manner 
that certain rationalistic writers of our day do so often struggle 
to explain all the phenomena of God's wondrous creation, 
Jews and Israelites too, by nothing but natural and material 
progressive development on laws of their own finding out, or 
imagining, alone. Wherefore no Scripture history (and that 
is the only available contemporary history) of those early 
times wherein the Great Pyramid was built — no Job xxxviii. 
4, 5, 6, 7 ; no Isaiah xix. 19, with its exquisite singling out of 
the ancient monument for a future purpose of the God of 
Israel — no allusion to Divine inspiration of any kind or degree 
to the deputed architect from Palestine, and who returned 
there again, is allowed to enter the ultra-modern disquisition 
for explaining ancient things which is now figuring in the 
present month's essay of a very pushing London magazine. 



122 



But as, in a subject of such undeniably primeval age as 
the Great Pyramid, something rather, or somewhat, old 
must be got hold of, to give just a flavour of antiquity 
to the dreadful rawness of this very year's mental theories, 
hastily run together by Mr. R. A. Proctor, he puts up 
horses, proh pudor, with Proclus ! Proclus, a man con- 
signed long ago by both the Churches and Academies to 
oblivion; and why? Ascertain who and what was Proclus. 
A pervert from Christianity and a follower of Julian the 
Apostate, dressing up again the old heathen idolatry in a 
new robe of mysticism and diablerie to suit the corrupt society 
of the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium, somewhere 
about a.d. 450. A man whose science was astrology; from 
whom we know nothing really and positively about any of 
the Pyramids of Egypt, and least of all about the exactitudes 
of the great one; a man indeed whose writings are verbal 
chiefly, are largely borrowed from others, but twisted and 
allegorised in the process. The very father, too, was he of 
modern rationalism, endeavouring to prove that the material 
world is eternal of, and by, itself alone ; and all this as part 
of his malignant book, entitled, " Eighteen Arguments 
against the Christians " ! ! ! But he wrote even that with so 
little point or effect that Gibbon is constrained to say of him, 
" His life exhibits a deplorable picture of the second child- 
hood of human reason." 

An astrologer then, not an astronomer, this Proclus, without 
any known facts to go upon, claimed King Cheops of the 
ancient Great Pyramid as being astrological, just like himself, 
in so very different an age of the world and state of human 
thought; and with this more than suspicious help, or worse 
than blind leading the blind, away goes Mr. Richard A. 
Proctor, brandishing, in the year 1879, a.d., the merely 



123 



medieval name of the wretched Proclus before astonished 
moderns ; and undertaking, on his lines, to prove that the very 
ancient King Cheops' object in building the grand monument 
of his reign and of all the early world, must have been 
astrological speculations about his own paltry life ; but begun 
on a basis of practical astronomy. 

The process, on paper, is really very cleverly conducted, 
albeit, at least to the general reader, rather wearisome. But 
then, to see how Mr. Proctor assumes so positively that his 
own peculiar ideas, of an observing astronomy he has never 
worked out, must have infallibly controlled the gigantic 
works in stone of the primeval Pyramid builders, and 
caused them, before settling down to selfish and Procleian 
astrological applications, to be guided by, and for, astronomy 
alone. This, too, is all the more noteworthy by us, because 
it is so peculiarly to the denial of another branch of the 
rationalistic school — viz., the Egyptologists. For they (see 
the article " Egypt " in the presently publishing edition of 
the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " ) repudiate any astronomy 
whatever in the Great Pyramid, and declare openly, roundly, 
insultingly, that no one who knows anything at all about 
the ancient Egyptians believes that the Great Pyramid was 
erected for anything else than a tomb. 

Whether it is justifiable or not for any writer on the 
extremest of human antiquities to put Scripture history so 
totally on one side, and try his own rationalistic ideas for 
explaining the early mystery of man's present position on 
earth, it is plain that some men will, up to the present day, 
still persist in doing so. And of the two classes of such 
modern rationalists just mentioned, Mr. Proctor is, in our 
humble estimation, by far the less objectionable ; for he does 
make use of, and endeavours to satisfy some of the positive 



124 



measures recently taken by modern scientific means, of the 
antique structure, while the Egyptologists ignore them all. 
We should therefore have some hopes of Mr. Proctor eventu- 
ally, were it not for his having just now wofully truckled 
down after all to the astronomy-despising Egyptologists, 
and that in the clenching matter of dates. But he cannot 
apparently go so grievously wrong there without exhibiting 
some lamentably bad feeling towards " the sacred and scien- 
tific theory " described in " Our Inheritance in the Great 
Pyramid." 

At his page 110, therefore, after some allusions to the 
" absurdities of Tajdor and Smyth," we read the following 
flippant account of the chronology derived in that book from 
the ancient monument ; and shown therein, again and again, to 
come, on all disputed points, just about half-way between the 
dates of the Septuagint and those of the Hebrew version 
of the Bible — they being the two versions which have 
almost equal authority and an equal number of supporters 
throughout Christendom, Yet thus writes the inventive Mr. 
Proctor : — 

"It is true not one of these intervals (of the Pyramid- 
derived chronology) accords with the dates given by those 
who are considered the best authorities in Biblical matters, 
but so much the worse for the dates." 

Wherefore what does Mr. Proctor, in all consistency, then 
do? Does he keep to one of the rival versions of the now 
lost original Bible alone, and ignore the other? or whom 
does he go to as " the best authorities in Biblical matters? " 

He goes straight to the Egyptologists, the very men who 
antagonise Biblical history, and whose early dates lie totally 
outside and beyond all those of both the acknowledged 
versions, among all Christians, of the Holy Scriptures. 



125 

Hence we find him now advocating an enormous date like 
B.C. 3,300, as being that of the foundation of the Great 
Pyramid. The Egyptologists simply say so, and apparently 
carry overwhelming weight with him ; he not regarding that 
that date of theirs implies a time when the earth was under 
the waters of the Noachian deluge, according to the dates 
of the Septuagint translation of the Bible, osu^as still more 
impossibly about a thousand years before that event, according 
to the dates of the Hebrew version of the Holy Scriptures. 
Wherefore, totally opposing all that men have now to trust 
to for the Divine Word, Mr. R. A. Proctor claims the 
presently existing Pyramids in Egypt as buildings erected 
either under the waters or long before the surging of the 
waters of the Noachian flood ; and calmly assumes, notwith- 
standing all which the Bible teaches of the few then saved 
in the ark, that at that very time the Pyramid builders 
possessed the command " of enormous wealth, practically 
exhaustless stores of material, and the means of compelling 
many thousands of men to labour for them ;" or, in plain 
fact, that there was no Deluge at all. 

It is not, therefore, only the theory of the Great Pyramid, 
as contained in the book " Our Inheritance," which is bein«; 
fought against by Mr. Proctor on this score of date of the 
Deluge, and date of architectural remains still visible on the 
earth, it is all the Christian Churches, Roman Catholic and 
Protestant, Presbyterian also and Episcopalian, and wherever 
any two or three worshippers may meet together to read the 
Scriptures and believe them to be the Word of God. 

Yet, however revolting so wide a contradiction to inspired 
history as Mr. Proctor's Egyptologically-derived assertion 
of 3300 B.C. for the date of the Great Pyramid's building may 
be to many, we, of the Banner, must here, and in this place 



126 



at all events, stay to inquire what are the astronomical grounds 
supposed to justify the assertion in Mr. Proctor's mind ; for 
as to Egyptology — founded, as it is, on idolatry of the most 
degrading kind, and no scientific records capable of fixing an 
absolute date — we can have nothing to do with that. 

The alleged astronomical grounds then are : — That at the 
first of two well-known and often-discussed occasions, when the 
Great Pyramid pole-star, Alpha Draconis, was visible at the 
" entrance passage " angle, a very bright star, Alpha Centauri, 
was observable southward in the direction of the "grand 
gallery " of the Great Pyramid. 

But that grand gallery is not an observing avenue, and 
points far too low down for the time-fixing star required. 
There are, moreover, near 200 feet of solid masonry between 
its southernmost end and the southern skies. It can only, 
therefore, act as a symbolical astronomical apartment, and 
there is no vestige of memorial that it was ever anything 
else ; and while its notable " seven overlappings " have been 
long held to typify the seven stars, or the Pleiades, the vertical 
meridian plane of those stars when southing at midnight, at 
the more Scriptural date for any post-diluvian architecture of 
2170 B.C., coincided with the similar plane of the Grand 
Gallery, though the stars themselves were at a much higher 
altitude therein. That position for them, too, is most pecu- 
liarly emphasized astronomically and for that one date alone, 
out of 25,000 years, by the Equinoctial Colure having then 
coincided therewith, and with the Polar star on the Meridian. 
The whole formed a most appropriate time-system for reckon- 
ing human history from, and is actually borne further his- 
torical testimony to by Pleiades-year traditions still forming 
the chronological heirlooms of most of the unchanged early 
races of mankind, as extracted out of aboriginal records with 



127 



so much care and success by Mr. R. G. Haliburton ; while, 
on the other hand, it is hardly necessary to remark that 
there are no similarly widespread human-history confirmations 
touching either the star of, or the antiquity of the name, or 
the existence of that hybrid animal, the Centaur. 

The scientific absolute date for the Pleiades group of stars 
having been in the remarkable position and combination above 
described, was computed with much skill in 1871, by Dr. 
Brunnow, then Astronomer Royal for Ireland, as being, not 
2170, as above, but 2248 B.C. Mr. Proctor, after similar 
calculations — wherein we are most happy to bear our testimony 
that he is extremely skilful and well versed — says that " 2140 
B.C., or thereabouts," is closer to the truth. Perhaps it is, 
and he may have involuntarily done hereby good service to 
the Pyramid cause; showing that, after all, the original 2170 
is not far from the mark ; and that the best modern science 
cannot be certain of its final figures when computing back for 
so great an interval as 4,000 years. But in his haste, Mr. 
Proctor mistakenly attributes the former calculation to Dr. 
Ball, the present Astronomer Royal for Ireland; and some- 
what similarly, at his page 112, he puts the Swede of Upsala, 
Mr. Wackerbath, for the late Sir Henry James, R.E., as the 
inventor of a certain comical system of balance ropes, trucks, 
wheels, and weights, for going up and down the inclined 
passages of the Great Pyramid — in idea. 

Far more seriously, however, than that mere mistake, Mr. 
R. A. P., at his page 110, and again at page 113, ascribes to 
the author of "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid" the 
enunciation that " the end of the world is to take place in 
1881 ;" whereas that person has not only not said that thing, 
but has said, printed, and published, and is still printing and 
publishing, the very opposite ; and we should be glad to have 



128 



it proved that the duplicated erroneous statement of Mr. R. 
A. P.'s is only a blunder. 

But his downright naming again (on his page 105) of what 
he will call, notwithstanding the most energetic denials of the 
principal persons concerned, " the Pyramid religion, established 
by Taylor, Smyth, and their followers," throws the most 
regretable doubts on the matter; leaving him thus an only 
too fit companion for his favourite, anti-Christian, and Pyramid 
perverting author of the dark ages, Proclus ! 

Piazzi Smyth. 



129 



STANZAS 

RETAINED FROM THIRD EDITION. 



182 

Siriad ! the land of mysteries sublime ! 

How Sihor's valley and its banks abound 
With proofs that reach back to the youth of time 

Of art, skill, science, wisdom, high, profound, 
Unmatched in any age, or race, or clime. 

Its temples, tombs, and pyramids astound — 
From Thebaid's solemn grandeur to the site 
Where Jeezeh's structures guard historic night. 

183 

In Lybian desert where its eastern line 
Bounds the Nile valley, we successive find 

The latter pyramids — a group of nine; 

Next Arrian-Reeghah, with two slopes combined — 

Then group of Abooseir more southward shine ; 
Saccara's group and Dashoor's — one designed 

With double slope, and one of brick composed, 

But ruined now, with tombs around disposed. 

184 

Next Lisht, Illahoon, and Howara stand, 
While those of Biamoo complete the list — 

Some thirty-five in all — that seem as planned 
On the initial type ; but those of Lisht 

And one of Dashoor seem now heaps of sand, 
While Aboo Roash does but of base consist ; 

El Farrahoon's design we find the same, 

And flat-topped Meydoom has no better claim. 

I 



130 



185 

Of all this number one alone contains 

The special features which shall be rehearsed; 

In angles, measures, plan, it now remains 
The proof that its wise architect was versed 

In highest truths of science, and sustains 

Its claims o'er all by whom they were aspersed — 

'Midst monuments of man it stands alone, 

The oldest, largest, highest, earth has known. 

186 

How, in its presence, modern pride is bowed ! 

Its hoary wisdom whispering from the dead — 
Sublime, mysterious, awful ! With the shroud 

Of forty centuries wrapped around its head 
We catch its muffled tones, now low, now loud, 

And hear with wonder nigh akin to dread 
The cosmic truths now by its stones revealed, 
Which for four thousand years have lain concealed. 

187 

By its vast hugeness mind and eye are dazed 
And into silence awed. We stare and stand, 

Striving in vain to grasp how it was raised — 

To comprehend the skill by which 'twas planned, 

Pigmies in mind and stature, stunned, amazed, 
We gaze and feel before that structure grand — 

The mightiest altar that has ever been, 

Which cannot be imagined until seen. 

188 

Thus turn we from all others to where rise, 
On Jeezeh's Hill, this wondrous work of man, 

This builded mountain towering to the sjdes 
And " the Great Pyramid " in outline scan ; 

Some thirteen English acres base supplies, 
Its height to eighty and one fathoms ran ; 

While, as to substance — measurement has shown 

That it contains five million tons of stone. 



131 



189 

One hundred thousand men for twenty years 
Toiled at this Pyramid ere it was crowned. 

In twice an hundred and nine mighty tiers 
It rose, and then from apex to the ground 

Was cased in limestone, which for thousand years 
Kahira has her building quarry found. 

Cephrenes' pile a portion still retains — 

Of that of Cheops .not a slab remains. 

190 

Gazing, rapt, awed, upon that mighty pile, 
The mind is filled with wonder, and we ask 

Is it a tomb or teacher? Whence its style? 

What men, what age conceived, achieved the task? 

Wonder of wonders in this land of Nile, 

Of what great thought is this the type and mask ? 

Here let us reverently pause, and seek 

The hidden wisdom which its structures speak. 

191 

Its chambers, passages, mysterious coffer ; 

Its layers, angles, measurements, and stone — 
All, each to unsealed eyes of men now offer 

Solutions (for four thousand years unknown) 
Of truths which stand against the doubting scoffer ; 

But clearer from their test, as fully shown 
By scientific labours, faith and teaching, 
Which Smyth " translates " as pyramidic preaching. 

192 

Wilkinson, Lepsius, Jomard, and Cecile ; 

Le Pere, Coutelle, with Perring, Lane, and Vyse; 
Greaves, Osburn, Bunsen, must, we deeply feel, 

Have honour paid their labours. Though the prize 
Fell to the lot of Taylor to reveal, 

The theory -which now the earth and skies 
Attest as truth. Since whom we homage pay 
To Smyth and Petrie, Goodsir, Mitchell, Day, 



132 



193 

Leseur, Renan, Bunsen, each believed 

'Twas built four, six, eight thousand years ago — 
Zadkiel, too, the same result achieved 

By astrologic formulas. We know 
Those were men by a theory deceived 

Which had no science-spring from whence to flow; 
And as is ever — their sage proofs on paper 
Were tinder made by touch of science-taper. 

194 

Heredotus historically shows 

What Herschel by astronomy makes clear; 
And hieroglyphic search their plan o'erthrows, 

As Osburn proves. Its age now to a year 
From Smyth's exhaustive demonstration flows, 

Unreached by Simpson's anesthetic sneer ; 
While Day and Petrie swell the ranks of those 
Who nobly worked its meaning to disclose. 

195 

Piazzi Smyth, a faith and zeal nerved man, 
Took up the clue which Taylor dimly saw, 

And to the crucial test of Taylor's plan 

Gave money, time, and labour — left no flaw 

In the exhaustive proof, whose labours ran 

Through months of trial which weak minds would awe — 

Then, boldly conscious of truth's deathless power, 

Gave to our age its grandest, gravest dower. 

196 

All honour to that brave, fond woman's heart 

Which nerved the wife the husband's toils to share — 

Which Love constrained from home and friends to part, 
And Ocean's wrath, and Desert's gloom to dare — 

Help meet in work of science, truth, and art, 
Most worthy Honour's brightest wreath to wear ; 

For gentle hearts, imbued with faith sublime, 

Are rare, as precious, in our sensuous time. 



133 



197 

Five times five centuries ere the Christian age, 
Occurred the mighty Mizraite migration 

From Shinar's plain, led by a monarch sage — 
A Hiksos grave, who, moved by inspiration, 

Did here, on central point of earth, engage 
To build in stone that wondrous revelation 

Which, in " Time's fulness," has at last been read 

By zealous heart and scientific head. 

198 

Of size supremely vast, of shape unique, 
The oldest structure ever built of stone ; 

In vain through range of Nature's forms we seek 
For model from which might be simply shown 

The builder drew his thought — not Fancy's freak 
Nor accidental stumbling made it known ; 

The mind that with the mighty thought was fired 

Was from above with perfect plan inspired. 

199 

Thus duly facing north, south, east, and west, 
On best meridian point of earth it stands ; 

Its height to square of base, will bear the test 
Of radius to its circle — here expands 

Our wonder, finding clearly thus expressed 
A ratio which undoubting Faith commands, 

In the belief that he who thus expressed it 

Was heaven-guided ; mortal brain ne'er guessed it. 

200 

A cubit measure has been used, we find, 
As the initial standard in construction — 

"A square of five in inches" — and defined 
As "sacred cubit;" showing, by deduction, 

A twenty-millionth part of length assigned 
To polar axis, in such parts reduction; 

While Earth's sidereal year, in days we trace, 

Each day a cubit, in the side of base. 



134 



201 

And further still, though each side gives a year 
In terms of cubit, there's a fraction plus ; 

Hence the four sides, by demonstration clear, 
Show one day surplus in their cycle ; thus 

Proving how wisely provident the seer 

Who, in his plan, did " leap-year" thus discuss — 

A marvellous exactness, strange, surprising, 

Beyond empiric chanceful theorizing. 

202 

No! reason shows, as an inspired design, 

Our year of clays thus fractionally given ; 
And when we reverently stretch our line 

On base diagonals, the mind is driven 
To swerveless faith ; for here the lengths combine 

To give the sum for which so long had striven 
The great Hipparchus. Here has inch expression 

The equinoctial period of precession. 

203 

The entrance-passage in its angle shows 

The year, the day, of the wise builder's plan, 

Which Herschel first observed. Our wonder grows 
When, in its angle's incidence we scan, 

That when Pleiades and then Pole-star ( l ) rose, 
And o'er meridian plane their courses ran, 

The extended line of passage angle vision 

Fixes their culminations with precision. 

204 

In the ascending passage, called " The Grand," 
We find its seven lappings, which define 

A week of days as by the builder planned, 
With other readings as we may incline ; 

And then, when in the central room we stand, 
Its floor, roof, sides, are teeming with design — 

The mean of earth's weight, temperature, and densi 

AH here expressed with accurate intensity. 



135 



205 

Here stands the coffer in this cryptic room — 
The one thing found in central heart of stone; 

Three thousand years, in silence and in gloom, 
It held its secret, known to him alone 

Who sealed it up as if till day of doom ; 

But now revealed, its hidden meanings shown, 

As for all nations — the true standard measure — 

Of pyramidic truth the chiefest treasure. 

206 

When "Al Mamoon," the Arab Caliph moved 

By fable dreamer's fabulistic teaching, 
Worked at the northern face until he grooved 

An entry through the solid mass, till reaching 
A passage — which the ancient entrance proved — 

To central chamber, without further breaching, 
This empty lidless coffer— not a tomb — 
Was all he found in Cheops' royal room. 

207 

The number ten, to its ninth power raised, 

And multiplied by pyramidic height, 
Gives a result at which we stand amazed — 

" Qur earth's true distance from the source of light!" 
He who would cry " Mere chance ! " is simply crazed, 

And should a pitying smile alone excite ; 
That truth to general man was then unknown — 
And hence Philitis, inspiration shown. 

208 

I've merely hinted at this theme, in hope 

To win the reader's interest in its truth — 
A theme most worthy of the widest scope, 

Of sage's wisdom, and the zeal of youth. 
Compared with subjects o'er which thinkers mope, 

It is— if I may use Lord Hamlet's trope — 
"Hyperion to a Satyr." In man's history 

It stands the greatest fact, the grandest mystery. 



136 

209 

But as that hoary pile doth still devour 

Its shadow daily, so it seems to hide 
Its secret truths. Four thousand years its power 

Appeared with magic mystery allied, 
Until at length came the appointed hour 

When scientific search, so long defied, 
Expelled the Genii of the powers of night, 
And gave its prisoned secrets to the light. 

210 

Honour to Smyth! and all that noble band 
Of scientific men, who gave their mind 

To rescue from the deserts' drifting sand 

The greatest truth to modern times assigned — 

A revelation grandest 'mid the grand 

Of all that science gave to human kind; 

An honour to their nation, age, and race, 

Who have achieved what time can ne'er efface. 

1 The true Pole Star of 2170 B.C., a Draconis, it being the largest star any- 
where near or about the Pole, but was actually 3° 40' therefrom. This distance 
would have vitiated its use for accurate purposes, had not the Pyramid architect 
struck out a method of using it which eliminated that vitiating quantity. He 
used it when it was crossing, or on the meridian below the Pole, and the Pleiades 
(near the Equator) were crossing it above the Pole, and then a plumb-line 
dropped from above would pass equally through both the polar point and the 
polar star as accurately as if said polar star were precisely in the polar point of 
the sky. Men of the Pyramid day (naturally speaking) knew nothing of the 
ichy they were only to use the then polar star at one particular instant of the 
night ; for we read, in the beginning of astronomy of Schedo, that 1600 years 
after the Pyramid's day, a Greek made himself famous by finding out that the 
Pole Star of his day was not veritably in the polar point ! ! ! That star, then 
one in Ursa Minor, but it was more than twice as far away from the Pole than 
was a Draconis in the Pyramid's day ; so what a simple discovery for a first of 
progressive development educationists to make, and they went no further than 
that for a long time. But at the much earlier date of the Great Pyramid's 
erection its architect bound up the correct use of the Pole Star for meridian 
alignment with the simultaneous use of it in the meridian and beloio the Pole, 
with 77 Tauri, in the chief star of the Pleiades, also on the meridian and above 
the Pole, to enable the date of the building to be correctly computed from the. 
precession of the equinoxes — a something among the phenomena of the stars 
which all mankind were then, and long after, most sublimely ignorant of, from 
any finding out of their own learned men. 



Price Three Shillings and Sixpence. 

THE MODERN ELOCUTIONIST, 

DEDICATED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO 



COMPILED AND EDITED 

BY 

JOHN A. JENNINGS, 

TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. 



DUBLIN : 
CARSON BROTHERS, 7, GRAFTON STREET. 
LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO, 
HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. 



A Selection of Press Opinions tcill he found in the following pages. 



This work has been already adopted in the following, amongst 
other, Educational Establishments in Dublin : — • 



Alexandra College. 

Rutland School. 

Queen's Institute. 

Mrs. Beatty's Ladies' School. 

Adelaide Hall School, Merrion. 



Rathmines School. 
Wesley College. 
The Church of Ireland Young 
Men's Christian Association. 

dc, &c. 



Many schools throughout the country also use it as a text- 
book. 

Very commendatory letters have been received from numerous 
Fellows and Professors in the University of Dublin, and from 
the Principals of Schools. 

Subjoined is a specimen : — 

" March WJi, 1879. 
" I regard the publication of Mr. Jennings" Modekn Elocutionist with 
extreme satisfaction. Such a work was much needed, as the f ormer selections 
were worn threadbare by constant repetition. Here all is new ground. The 
choice made is such as might be expected when the editor's long scholastic 
experience was brought to bear on the subject. The introductory remarks 
are admirably clear, sound, and practical. Simplicity is aimed at, and help- 
fulness is the result. I can cordially commend the volume as an eminently 
desirable one for use in schools— the best proof of my approval being, that 
I have adopted it here. 

" Maxwell M'Ixtosh, LL.D., 

" Head Master, Wesley College, Dublin." 



A SELECTION 

FROM THE 

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



LONDON. 

" The author, who is a member of Trinity College, Dublin, has here revived, 
with no little success, a kind of work which used to be very popular. It 
appears as if the interest now taken in the drama is gradually leading to 
an improvement in the art of elocution, and certainly not before it was 
needed. There is another feature connected with this movement which 
cannot be overlooked, and of this Mr. Jennings has availed himself with 
great taste and judgment. We allude to the many new forms of literature 
which have been brought forward of late years. The old high sounding, 
mouthy school of piece which used to be popular with our forefathers has 
given place to a class of literature requiring greater variety on the part of 
the speaker, and Mr. Jennings, perceiving this, has given the reciter a choice 
of some of the finest modern pieces, including several excellent specimens 
of American authors. A poem of extraordinary fascination, which will be 
new to most readers, is entitled 'The Children,' and was said to be found 
in Charles Dickens' desk after his death. The collection does the editor 
credit, and the book will be found very useful to the student of elocution." — 
The Era. 

" Lovers of readings and recitations, whether for purposes of education or 
of entertainment, will find in The Modern Elocutionist, by John A. Jennings 
(Carson Brothers, Dublin), a volume much to be commended for good 
arrangement, and still more for a copious selection of comparatively 
unhackneyed pieces, humorous or pathetic, from the most popular modern 
writers of England and America." — The Graphic. 



" Mr. John A. Jennings' Modern Elocutionist will be welcomed by all who 
give so-called ' readings,' or who teach elocution, or who desire to possess a 
book containing some of the less-known and hackneyed quotations, but also 
some of he most interesting, from our best authors. It is an admirable 
compilation." — The Hornet. 



A SELECTION FROM THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



" The Modern Elocutionist, compiled and edited by Mr. J. A. Jennings, 
of Trinity College, Dublin, claims to 'differ from other collections in its 
freshness of selection.' This description is fairly borne out by its contents, 
which comprise pieces from English and American authors, well chosen and 
adapted for the purpose of the book."— The Daily Aews. 



"The Modern Elocutionist, compiled and edited by John A. Jennings, of 
Trinity College, Dublin, seems more carefully and judiciously selected than 
is usually the case with books of ' Readings.' All who have had to do with 
elocutionary entertainments know the difficulties of controlling the pro- 
gramme, and of keeping back what offends good taste, if not morality or 
religion. The Introduction contains some good remarks on reading in 
public." — The Record. 

" The Modern Elocutioni&t.— This is one of the best selections of pieces 
for reading and recitation we have seen. The compiler evidently knows what 
is suited for platform delivery and what is not, and he has chosen just those 
which are sure to go well with almost any audience. Another merit of the 
work is that the selections are, as a whole, much less worn and familiar than 
usual. Anyone who is in the habit of taking part in penny readings and 
similar entertainments will find this volume very useful."— The Rock. 



DUBLIN. 

" This volume will be recognised with pleasure as the work of a gentleman 
who has won a high reputation as an elocutionist and reader. It was gene- 
rally felt that, for the purpose of cultivating a taste for correct and expressive 
reading— a branch of education too long neglected— it was desirable that a 
new set of examples, taken out of the beaten- track, should be collected. 
Mr. Jennings has made a perfectly fresh and attractive selection, embracing 
a great variety of subjects in poetry and prose, extracted from a host of 
authors, and illustrating every phase of passion and humour. They have 
been chosen, with scholarly taste and discrimination, chiefly from modern 
authors, but also from the old standard works. The volume is brought out 
in the best style."— The Daily Express. 



A SELECTION FROM THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



" For the first time Mr. Jennings, the well-known Dublin reader, comes be- 
fore us for notice as a compiler. His work has just left the press, and appears 
under the above title in a well-bound, sensible volume, light for the hand and 
pleasant to the eye. Its contents are characterised by a novelty as agreeable 
as it is rare in such compilations, and the judgment proved by the selection 
made is undoubtedly the result of sympathy. To enter into an enumeration 
of the extracts and complete pieces is not our intention. For the present 
purpose it will be sufficient to note that they are remarkable for both earnest 
beauty and genuine worth. The names of the first literary stars in the United 
Kingdom are many in the list of authors, and amongst them, shining with no 
borrowed light, but with an effulgence self-created, we find the best of our 
own city poets. The humorous division is highly nineteenth century, and 
strongly American, and the serious selections are tinged with advanced 
philosophy and modern German realism. In conclusion, taken from the 
school-literature point of view, or looked at as a culling of beautiful poems 
made by a loving hand, we regard The Modern Elocutionist secure of 
success, and, in wishing it what it deserves, we recommend it in good faith 
to our readers."— The Freeman's Journal. 



"The well-won reputation of Mr. Jennings as a 1 Reader 1 has qualified him 
in an eminent degree for the production of the volume before us. The 
selections are such as commend the book to the attention of teachers as well 
as that of the general reader. Although freshness and novelty are found the 
distinguishing character of the contents, gems of English classic literature 
from Shakspere, Goldsmith, Macaulay, Dickens, Jerrold, Lamb, Sheridan, 
Rogers, &c, have been retained. We are glad to find that Mr. Jennings has 
enriched his book by selections from American writers — Willis, Holmes, 
Whittier, Bret Harte, and Clemens (Mark Twain) being well represented in 
his pages. In his Introduction, Mr. Jennings has given plain and thoroughly 
sound instruction on the rare art of reading well, an accomplishment possessed 
by few, and which may be acquired by all who follow the essential rules he 
propounds and illustrates. We confidently bespeak for The Modern Elocu- 
tionist a wide and permanent circulation in schools, as well as in the libraries 
of all those who desire a selection of extracts expressing humour, pathos, and 
the deeper emotions of the human heart."— The Irish Times. 



A SELECTION FROM THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



"The gentleman who is compiler of this volume has been for some time 
known as a painstaking and accomplished elocutionist in Dublin. His 
Readings hare been attended by numbers, and have had a decided educational 
value. Mr. Jennings has been permitted to dedicate his book to her Grace 
the Duchess of Marlborough, and it seems worthy of this patronage as an ex- 
cellent book for use in schools, and one likely also to prove most agreeable in 
those family circles where a taste for good reading is cultivated. Mr. 
Jennings, in a modest preface, claims very justly for his book the merit of 
freshness of selection. His directions to readers are brief, but we can 
warmly commend them. These are evidently the result of experience. No 
more suitable present could be made than Mr. Jennings' book; and we hope 
it will have a large sale, and disestablish some of the very inferior recitation 
books that have been long in use, and the pieces in which have become hack- 
neyed and tiresome from repetition. Mr. Jennings' volume has been care- 
fully edited, and is printed in very clear and suitable letter."— The Dublin 
Mail. 

" This well-chosen and attractive compilation of selections from the best- 
known authors is dedicated by its talented editor to her Grace the Duchess of 
Marlborough, and is in every way entitled to take the premier place among 
works of this kind As a gifted and thoughtful reader Mr. Jennings stands 
admittedly in the front rank of modern elocutionists; and it was only to be 
expected that, guided by the matured judgment and finished taste which he 
abundantly possesses, his efforts in the task of selection from the prose and 
poetry of men whose names are famous wherever the English tongue is 
spoken, should result in a volume whose contents will charm while they will 
instruct all who may peruse its delightful pages. The letterpress is clear and 
distinct, and the book altogether is one of the pleasantest we would desire 
with which to spend a thoroughly enjoyable evening."— The Intermediate 
Educational Record and Review. 



"Although not coming within the range of legal literature, this book 
deserves a few words from lis. Mr. Jennings is a young gentleman who has 
won for himself a high reputation as a public Eeader, and has lately 
published the result of his experience. He has culled the most beautiful 
passages in the literature of the English language, not only in past time, 
but also in the present ; and it is pleasing to observe he does not interpolate 
his own readings in his Shakspere selections— an egotism prevalent among 
most public Readers. " — Irish Law Times. 



A SELECTION FROM THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



"To this tasteful work, dedicated to the Duchess of Marlborough, we are 
constrained to award very high praise. Its literary qualities are first-class, 
and the print, binding, &c, in good style. It is too common for good books 
to bear a price that is for many readers a prohibition, but this volume is at 
once the best and cheapest of its kind. The compiler is a student of Trinity 
College, and for some years has been favourably known to the cultivated 
public as a Reader. That a young student of Trinity College should succeed 
so well in such an undertaking is really most gratifying to all who believe in 
Irish talent. Mr. Jennings aims at producing a good school-book useful to 
young people, clergymen, and others, who study elocution. For good reading 
he gives one golden rule— feel what you read; and he furnishes the intended 
reader with selections, grave and gay, so well chosen that if the reader cannot 
feel them we would advise him to desist entirely from attempting to read. 
Of the undramatic pieces there is hardly one that can have been hackneyed 
by use or misuse— all is virgin soil. We heartily welcome this book to the 
office of educating our youth, and we predict for it no small measure of 
literary success."— Saunders 1 Daily News. 

" We really wanted a good modern collection. Few persons were better 
qualified to undertake this task than the gifted author of the valuable work 
now before us. Mr. Jennings has succeeded well in his work, whether we 
regard the authors themselves from whom he has borrowed, the pieces 
selected, or the taste exhibited in the order and arrangement of the different 
parts of the book." — The Irish Church Advocate. 

" We have turned over the pages of this volume with genuine pleasure, and 
we have no hesitation in stating, that a more choice selection of readings or 
pieces for recitation could not be gleaned from the productions of modern 
authors. The work consists of four divisions, the first containing numerous 
prose and poetic pieces; the second division consists of humorous pieces ; the 
third division gives dramatic pieces from the plays of Lytton, Coleman, Gold- 
smith, Sheridan, and Sheridan Knowles. The fourth division is drawn 
altogether from Shakspere's plays, and contains the principal speeches of 
the dramatic writings of the great master. From a work containing so many 
beautiful pieces in poetry and prose it would be invidious to give extracts ; 
but the collection fully displays the refined and intellectual taste of the 
learned editor. We cordially recommend the work to oar readers, and feel 
certain it will become a favourite with the schools and colleges of the 
country. The printing and binding are creditable to the publisher." — Irish 
Teachers' Journal. 



A SELECTION FROM THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



"The gentleman who is compiler of this volume has been for some time 
known as a painstaking and accomplished elocutionist in Dublin. His 
Readings hare been attended by numbers, and have had a decided educational 
value. Mr. Jennings has been permitted to dedicate his book to her Grace 
the Duchess of Marlborough, and it seems worthy of this patronage as an ex- 
cellent book for use in schools, and one likely also to prove most agreeable in 
those family circles where a taste for good reading is cultivated. Mr. 
Jennings, in a modest preface, claims very justly for his book the merit of 
freshness of selection. His directions to readers are brief, but we can 
warmly commend them. These are evidently the result of experience. No 
more suitable present could be made than Mr. Jennings' book; and we hope 
it will have a large sale, and disestablish some of the very inferior recitation 
books that have been long in use, and the pieces in which have become hack- 
neyed and tiresome from repetition. Mr. Jennings' volume has been care- 
fully edited, and is printed in very clear and suitable letter."— The Dublin 
Mail. 

" This well-chosen and attractive compilation of selections from the best- 
known authors is dedicated by its talented editor to her Grace the Duchess of 
Marlborough, and is in every way entitled to take the premier place among 
works of this kind. As a gifted and thoughtful reader Mr. Jennings stands 
admittedly in the front rank of modern elocutionists; and it was only to be 
expected that, guided by the matured judgment and finished taste which he 
abundantly possesses, his efforts in the task of selection from the prose and 
poetry of men whose names are famous wherever the English tongue is 
spoken, should result in a volume whose contents will charm while they will 
instruct all who may peruse its delightful pages. The letterpress is clear and 
distinct, and the book altogether is one of the pleasantest we would desire 
with which to spend a thoroughly enjoyable evening."— The Intermediate 
Educational Record and Review. 



"Although not coming within the range of legal literature, this book 
deserves a few words from us. Mr. Jennings is a young gentleman who has 
won for himself a high reputation as a public Reader, and has lately 
published the result of his experience. He has culled the most beautiful 
passages in the literature of the English language, not only in past time, 
but also in the present ; and it is pleasing to observe he does not interpolate 
his own readings in his Shakspere selections— an egotism prevalent among 
most public Readers." — Irish Law Times. 



A SELECTION FROM THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



"To this tasteful work, dedicated to the Duchess of Marlborough, we are 
constrained to award very high praise. Its literary qualities are first-class, 
and the print, binding, &c, in good style. It is too common for good books 
to bear a price that is for many readers a prohibition, but this volume is at 
once the best and cheapest of its kind. The compiler is a student of Trinity 
College, and for some years has been favourably known to the cultivated 
public as a Reader. That a young student of Trinity College should succeed 
so well in such an undertaking is really most gratifying to all who believe in 
Irish talent. Mr. Jennings aims at producing a good school-book useful to 
young people, clergymen, and others, who study elocution. For good reading 
he gives one golden rule— feel what you read; and he furnishes the intended 
reader with selections, grave and gay, so well chosen that if the reader cannot 
feel them we would advise him to desist entirely from attempting to read. 
Of the undramatic pieces there is hardly one that can have been hackneyed 
by use or misuse— all is virgin soil. We heartily welcome this book to the 
office of educating our youth, and we predict for it no small measure of 
literary success." — Saunders 1 Daily News. 

"We really wanted a good modern collection. Few persons were better 
qualified to undertake this task than the gifted author of the valuable work 
now before us. Mr. Jennings has succeeded well in his work, whether we 
regard the authors themselves from whom he has borrowed, the pieces 
selected, or the taste exhibited in the order and arrangement of the different 
parts of the book." — The Irish Church Advocate. 

" We have turned over the pages of this volume with genuine pleasure, and 
we have no hesitation in stating, that a more choice selection of readings or 
pieces for recitation could not be gleaned from the productions of modern 
authors. The work consists of four divisions, the first containing numerous 
prose and poetic pieces; the second division consists of humorous pieces ; the 
third division gives dramatic pieces from the plays of Lytton, Coleman, Gold- 
smith, Sheridan, and Sheridan Knowles. The fourth division is drawn 
altogether from Shakspere's plays, and contains the principal speeches of 
the dramatic writings of the great master. From a work containing so many 
beautiful pieces in poetry and prose it would be invidious to give extracts ; 
but the collection fully displays the refined and intellectual taste of the 
learned editor. We cordially recommend the work to our readers, and feel 
certain it will become a favourite with the schools and colleges of the 
country. The printing and binding are creditable to the publisher."— Irish 
Teachers' Journal. 



A SELECTION FROM THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



strongly recommend this new Elocutionist to the notice of school teachers 
and others who are engaged in teaching this most important art. In after- 
life to he a good reader and speaker must, in great measure, depend on the 
earlj- and careful training of the young. No gift is more precious, and there 
is none more envied. So, unfortunately, is it seldom found. In whatever 
sphere of life a man is placed this preparation will prove of infinite service. 
The advantage it gives him over his less-favoured fellows is incalculable. 
And whether at home with the family, or in the public school, the cultivation 
of a correct method of speaking and reading is, we regret to say, too often 
neglected. Hence it is that we hail with pleasure this well-timed effort of 
Mr. Jennings, and cordially recommend the work." — Cork Constitution. 



"There is a really capital collection of pieces, grave and gay— some of them 
from authors not always immediately accessible to the general reader, and all 
of them characterised by decided merit.'"— The Cork Examiner. 



DERRY. 

"We predict a large sale of this work. It is a good-sized volume of nearly 
500 pages, and contains an excellent selection of entertaining reading. The 
author, or rather the compiler and editor, Mr. John A. Jennings, Trinity 
College, Dublin, has picked the cream of the productions of our most popular 
and admired writers —in fact, the audience would be difficult to please whose 
tastes a reader could not suit from Mr. Jennings' work We would particularly 
recommend those inclined for public, or indeed for private, reading, to care- 
fully study Mr. Jennings' Introduction— it will be found full of useful hints, 
conveyed in brief but clear language. We have pleasure in recommending 
the compilation to the patronage of our readers."— The Berry Journal. 



LEEDS, 

" A work which will be welcomed alike by tutor and pupil has been issued. 
It is an Elocution the merit of which lies not wholly in the fact that it intro- 
duces an almost entirely new series of selections. It contains a clear state- 
ment of rules required for the management of the voice, gesture, and other 
aids to appropriate expression in speaking or reading. These will be found 
of great value in the acquirement of grace of delivery and a cultured style. 
Freshness in the characteristic of the selections. Even in those from Shak- 
spere, hackneyed pieces have as far as possible been avoided, and the quota- 



A SELECTION FROM THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



tions are arranged in their probable chronological sequence. Again, the 
selections are in divisions — serious, pathetie, &c, which includes poetry and 
prose pieces in subdivisions; humorous selections, similarly treated; and 
dramatic. Reference is made easy by a list of ' contents ' and an index to 
authors."— Leeds Mercury. 



LIMERICK. 

" To enter upon hitherto untrodden ground with a just sense of appreciation 
of the beautiful, whenever it is to be found, requires most delicate discrimina- 
tion. Mr. Jennings has, we should say, fulfilled all these obligations. His 
really beautiful compilation is worthy of highest praise. The grave, the 
gay — every style, every characteristic that can elucidate either the powers or 
the taste of the reader is successively given, and Mr. Jennings leaves nothing 
out that one would really desire to see included in the book. We have no 
donbt but that his Modern Elocutionist will be the one selected above all 
others by aspiring readers, whether for public or private use." — The Limerick 
Chronicle. 



" The purchaser of this reasonably-sized volume will not only possess a 
treasury of fresh extracts from some of the best modern writers, well worth 
acquiring, but will be saved the trouble of searching for suitable matter 
for private or public readings, besides having the advantage of concise but 
judicious directions on the management of the voice and action in recitation, 
in a brief but valuable Introduction." — The Limerick Reporter. 



LIVERPOOL. 

"This volume, which is dedicated to the Duchess of Marlborough, is 
singularly free from elocutionary readings, which, however excellent in 
themselves, have become wearisome by constant repetition. Those, therefore, 
who are on the outlook for a selection of fresh pieces for recitation, will find 

an abundant supply here ' from grave to gay, from lively to severe.' 

All public speakers, and particularly those who are only beginning to learn 
the art, ought to be very thankful to Mr. Jennings for his brief but admirable 
Introduction— his ' hints to readers ' in which are well fitted to be of much 

practical utility Among many books of a similar character, this 

volume is entitled to a high place, and if carefully studied will do much to 
help many a young man to read and speak well."— The Liverpool Mercury. 



I EDITION OF THE WORKS 

OF THE LATE 

NDER CARSON, LLD. 

FIRST VOLUME 

the Atonement ; or, the Nature and Importance of t 
Resurrection. 3. A View of the Day of Judgmei 
T of God. 5. The Truth of the Gospel demonstrat 
d, manifested in the Atonement, in a Letter to M i . 
ietter to the Emperor Napoleon. 7. Character and 
iew of an Article in the Edinburgh Reiiev: on Eva 
ictification of the First Day of the Week. 10. On 

Excellency of the Scriptures. 11. Difficulties in t 
manifest the Unbelief of Men. 12. Remarks on tL.j 
u 13. Faith, the Foundation of the greater part of 

The World by Wisdom knew not God. 1">. T} 
lakes the Simple Wise. 16. Solution of the Greu: 
e of Salvation by Law and Grace irreconcilable wi 
ttan Feast of Rhamazan. 19. The Propagation of thf 

SECOND VOLUME 

uty of all Men to read the Scriptures. 2. The Doctrii 
ireive of the Foundations of Human belief ; thereto 
>y any evidence, or of being believed by men under tl 
3. Remarks on the Miracles of Prince EUjhenlohi 

of J. K. L. 5. Strictures on tbe Speech of the Rigid 
in the House of Commons, touching the Cavan Reft) 

Drummond's Essay on the Doctrine of the Trinit 
m on the Unitarian Controversy between the Re 
Rev. Daniel Bagot. 

THIRD VOLUME 

ipture as Evidential of its Inspiration. 2. Theorii - ■ 
nith, Dr. Dick, and Bishop Wilson refuted, and tl. 
Scriptures proved. 3. Refutation of Dr. Henderso 
ation of Review of Carson's Work on In.-piratioi 
h's Defence of Dr. Haffner's Preface to the Bible. 

FOURTH VOLUME 

rating from the General Synod of Ulster. 2. Rep] 
l of the Presbyterian Form of Church Government, in 
I ^stolical Churches is Defended. 

FIFTH VOLUME 

.Jesus the Most Excellent of the Sciences. 2. Prill 
i dion. 3. A Treatise on the Figures of Speech. 

SIXTH VOLUME 

I lovidence the God of the Bible. 2. Providence 
I Esther. 3. The History of Providence as Manifes 



in itself, is sold separately, price Five Shillings, pos 



S, 7, GRAFTON-ST., DUBLIN 

3 accompanied by a Cash Remittance. 



OF THE 




WORKS OF 

/. ALEXANDER CARSON 

r 4 ™ ^SfWSf 

Carson's faj^je asj. divine will -chiefly rest upo. the distinguished *< 

endered to^e tmise/ft^ Christianity by his triumphant vind'X'&tiok 
nspiration of tibJtfpriptiires. In this great unde: 
some of theHDiwt learned and accomplished of = aate 
>nly, but in England, Scotland, and America, an 
lorn, has .been due homage rendered to the genius and woc&ss vviti 
ated that 'every word of God is pure,' and that even 
ith Divine majesty and glory." — Banner of Utetei 

y ARSON has long been well known, not only in 1 
nd America, as a first rate scholar, a sound phi! 
and a profound theologian. His works shall be h 
ndent genius, of imperishable greatness, evincing 
ropriety, he has been designated one of the first 1 
itury. ' ' — Scotsman . 

Lev. Alexander Carson, one of the first Biblic - 
\ almost singular excellences of this most extrao. 
cal conceptions, and his feasless philosophical 
writers are only scholars. The true critic is n 
r combined." — Christian Freeman. 

Treatises are distinguished by deep and origin; 
knowledge, perfect command, y et great simplicity 
:it of boldness and earnestness in stating and vindicating .rati:, as is 
in these days of hesitating statement and lukewar 
? lived habitually under the influence of one gr< 
;he very life of his spirit and the centre of his the >g 

his thoughts and feelings — the atonement of t: 
- Ilerahl. 

profound and accurate thinker, an able metaphy 
oo'iaa, Dr. Carson can stand the ground asaius • » 



tters of Church order it is well known we differ fr 
him — as a Christian brother, we embrace him. I 
of language he is far in advance of the present i- 
;al acuteness and powers of reasoning, he has be 
f the nineteenth century,' His character as a pin 
>riginal, independent thinker, stands in the very 
designated when called one of the most philosophj 
hodox Presbyterian. 



I ML 



3 subject we shall quote the eloquent and forcible r 
N, of Ulster, whose death we were lately grieved 
. survive to justify the high character he bore a" 
an accomplished scholar, an acute and deep phi 
V — London Record. 



